James Nesbitt Quotes

I never act my characters - I am them.

Actors pull from their own experiences to bring reality to the characters. I wouldn't want to play someone who's a lot like me. There would be no turning it on or off.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

You can say to actors that you've got to be the character and really get into it, but you have to make it realistic by bringing an element of yourself into it.

I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.

All my characters are me. I'm not a good enough actor to become a character. I hear about actors who become the role and I think 'I wonder what that feels like.' Because for me, they're all me.

I think you have to draw from any character and bring it to yourself as much as possible.

When you are developing a character you have to bring so much of yourself to the role.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

I love acting it's apart of me and I try to put a little bit of myself in each of my roles.

You draw on whatever's relevant to the part you're playing; it makes it more personal.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

I don't even draw on my life experiences when I'm acting. I just try and make it feel like I'm living through that person's skin.

I think every actor injects some of his own personality into his parts. There's a great deal of myself in McCoy, a great deal of Bill in Kirk, and a great deal of Leonard in Spock!

I think it always helps when you build a character, and then, you actually step into that character's wardrobe, something else happens. Another angle of the character comes to life.

I believe in the fact that to portray a character convincingly, you need to live that character, own that character. You have to be earnest with every line that you deliver. However, it doesn't mean that you have to cut off your true self.

I'm sure there's pieces of me in all the characters I play.

I love acting... I really do. I love crawling into another character's skin. That's something that I've always, always, always, always wanted.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.

A lot of male actors are method actors and they become the characters which they both were.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.

Actors have either got to play something that's close to them, or something that's the complete opposite.