Glenne Headly Quotes

I like to prepare for my roles well, so you can call me a method actor to an extent.

If you just stay with it and take it scene by scene, episode by episode, all of the questions that I have, as an actor, tend to answer themselves.

I think that different actors go about their preparation differently, but when it comes to acting, I use my imagination.

In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

Everything I've ever learned about acting - and I went to theater school - was about playing what the character wants and throwing yourself fully into going after what the character wants.

Every actor turns everything round to their character.

As an actor, your first priority is the work - immersing yourself in the role, backstory, and bringing that to screen.

I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.

For me, all you want from your actor is for them to engage on a deeply emotional level with the material. If you feel like that happens, directing the actors is pretty much done at that point.

I was amazed by the kind of preparation Hollywood actors do for their roles.

It's always important to try and get a real sense of the world around my characters. I especially think it helps actors.

In general, I don't really think too much about pacing, myself. You kind of look at each script and what each script demands.

I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.

I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

I don't really prepare for roles. I just kind of do them!

I try to think what the character is thinking. Then, hopefully, I begin to feel it. I act and react not because I'm recalling a dog killed by a fire engine, but because I'm concentrating on what the character is going through.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.