Jane Campion Quotes

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

I'm comfortable in front of the camera, but I can't act.

The camera or the microphone in the booth is merciless. If you don't believe what you're saying, it hears it. If you don't believe it, it sees it in your eyes, it hears it in your voice that there isn't the conviction there.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

Actors put ourselves in awkward positions all the time.

I'm used to being in front of camera and knowing what to think. But if you're asking me to be me, I get very self-conscious. My job isn't to be me. Being an actor, people think you can do a eulogy at a funeral, a speech at a wedding. I find all that very nerve-racking.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

As an actor, I've grown considerably. It's taken me years to get comfortable doing a romantic scene and dancing on stage in front of a live audience. I've really opened up a lot.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people.

The biggest battle for a lot of people who come out of the theater, which is where I was trained, is that they can never forget that a camera is pointed at them.

I always thought I was a pretty terrible actor.

Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career.

I don't have an 'actor cry.'

I'm not a very good actor.

I've never acted, but I'm an entertainer. So I kind of used what I know from being onstage. I've done a thousand and two interviews, and I've been on camera a million times, so I'm not uncomfortable on camera, but it was interesting for me to be someone else.

I always panic on the first day of work. You can do all the Stanislavsky-backstory homework, but when that moment arrives and you are in the clothes, hair, and makeup of somebody else, and you're saying the words created by somebody else - I never know how to do it. It's a complete mystery to me.

As an actor, the only pressure I have is to just be truthful and to do my best work.

I have no interest in watching myself act.

Confidence is the greatest gift for an actor.

Something I learned as an actor was which scenes needed to be rehearsed and which actors are good with rehearsal, which actors learn from it, and which ones grow stale because they start to second-guess themselves.

Even if one is not a great actor, just being in front of the camera requires a lot of effort.

I've always loved acting but never thought I could do theatre because I got the worst stage fright ever.