Laurence Fishburne Quotes

It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.

Each action of the actor on the stage should be the visible concomitant of his thoughts.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

Accents influence a performance. If you look at Stanislavski, he says work from the in to the out, and I probably overall work the other way. I find an accent and a mood, and that influences the character massively.

I'm not a fan of gushing emotions. I think that probably shows in all of the characters I play. I try to reinterpret the characters in my style.

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

If you sit and feel sorry for yourself, you're wasting your time. You should be in acting class, instead of feeling sorry for yourself. You should be working.

I personally like to talk to people when I'm not doing a scene, still acting as if I'm in Gotham when I'm on set because I don't really like to break character, since I sometimes get distracted. I may get distracted when I'm talking to people and having fun; then I have to check myself.

Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate.

I think my motto is to always remain focused on what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

I'm in lockdown mode as far as what I want to accomplish. I don't let anything else get in my way.

The main thing is the ability to control your instrument, which, in the actor, is yourself. Look the way you want the character to look. Sound the way you want the character to sound. Once you've trained the instrument to do what you want, you're in control, and you're free.

I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

Still, it can be more effective to accomplish what you need to accomplish with the minimum effort. Watch Anthony Hopkins. He doesn't appear to be doing anything. He is so still that you can't see him working, but you are drawn into his character through his very stillness.

When preparing a role, I work first on the body language and physical aspects of the performance; the psychological dimension comes naturally once I'm in character.

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.

When I go from a role with heavy prosthetic makeup, which I've done quite a bit of as well, and then do a role where I'm not wearing any, I have to be conscious of toning everything down. Because when you're wearing prosthetic makeup, of course, you have to really move your face a lot more to convey things through the makeup.

I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Every minute you spend in your life is either spent bringing you closer to your goals or moving you away from your goals.

If you really want something you can figure out how to make it happen.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

Review your goals twice every day in order to be focused on achieving them.