Sonoya Mizuno Quotes

I've always believed acting is an improvisational art form, even when not a single line is changed. I mean, the behavior should always be improvised. My favorite moments in any performance are when I'm just along for the ride; when I'm surprising myself. I know when I'm done and I think to myself, 'Gee, I didn't see that coming,' I've done well.

I love to act and put on a show, but you're playing a character all the time. For music, it's really just me being myself.

As a child, acting just seemed like a natural extension of my love of play - and if you've forgotten how to play, you shouldn't be an actor.

I just think there's always room for humanity in acting, one can only hope, so when you bring in the whole life of a person that's playing a character, then surprises happen and are allowed to happen, and so it makes it more interesting.

As an actor, you always want to reach back to being a child and having the spontaneity and the imagination of a child.

I don't have a process; I just feel it. My book on acting would be very short.

The only time I judge an actor on set is if they're not failing; if they get it right all the time, I start to question it. I feel like it's too easy.

The most fundamental important thing for me as an actor is maintaining a sense of play. It's so important.

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living.

I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense.

Well, I love acting, and I love acting quick.

The worst acting is about imitation.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

And I taught acting for years, and without knowing it that was the real thing that started bending me toward directing.

I'm an actor's director. I love it when talented actors can bring characters to life.

Acting is what happens on the way.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees.

Sometimes acting is really cool because it forces you to exercise certain muscles in your personality that you wouldn't normally be called upon in life.

I think people who are regarded as better actors must have better instincts because, at the end of the day, once they say 'action,' it's you who has to do it right. You can do all the research and preparation or none at all, but it's your instincts that tell you, 'No, I'll do it like this.'

I'm attracted to roles that are unpredictable, and if I can get my hands on something like that, I'm thrilled. I like performances where you don't know what's coming, moment to moment.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

You've got to love acting and that's true for me. I love the idea of getting on stage and getting in front of a camera.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.