Meryl Streep Quotes

When you see something that is well-written, the actors can get behind it.

I love a mask. It's why I've got a thing about good writing. When you're acting, you're going into someone else's work. You're behind his words; it's not you.

Well, I've always been a character actor, you know, and you always get your share of character actors who are bad guys. So it never surprises me. And if it's good writing, you can find your way into the part well enough.

I'm probably not very funny. The scripts just don't come in, or the ones that do aren't that good. I suppose I'm just an old drama queen, really.

So you want to take the risk, and you want to step out there; you do it because that's what we have to do as actors. And sometimes in TV, it becomes big, and it becomes about the entertainment, but also, we have to focus in on the work.

I am a variety machine; I look for variety in my characters, and an extra edge in the characterisation helps in bringing out a better performance.

I guess it's a bit cliché, but as an actor, I really admire good writing. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but it's the execution that really makes it work.

When I do plays in New York and do eight shows a week, you have the same feeling. Three of them are terrible, four of them are okay and one is really good. It's hard to say what accounts for the really good one or for the terrible ones, but you end up trying to remanufacture whatever worked for the good one, like eating a tomato. I ate a tomato and the show was good, but that of course is not how it works.

I just always thought, I love acting and I love writing. And when I haven't got any more good breath and good energy, then I'll write.

I've had pretty much the same crew for all the films that I've made, and I've managed to have really nice, calm, funny people. That is a big part of it, a family feeling of warmth and finding something interesting and making a platform for them to perform. It's a very difficult job, acting, in that it's totally counterintuitive to how we are brought up.

All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.

I wasn't trying to do a play or do what Kevin Spacey did. I was trying to do my own thing with it.

In a funny way, acting, to me, is all make-believe, even if the film has unicorns in it or is a normal movie that can be set in real-life time. I'm still imagining that I'm a different character, so it's all, in a funny way, like fantasy.

I've always had a really great time being in movies and writing music when I get home. The more creative I am, the more it feeds into other creative aspects of my life.

It's what I wanted to do with my life. Not necessarily just direct Jim Carrey movies, but to direct and act and write and create and along the way discover what it is that I'm about.

I like acting and things when I like the writing. If I don't like the writing, I don't like acting. I think in some ways everything starts for me from the place of writing.

James Franco, acting, teaching, directing, writing, producing, photography, soundtracks, editing - is there anything you can do?

I believe people instinctively know that about writing, yet people get confused about that when it comes to acting.

I feel so fortunate to get paid to be an actor. I pinch myself. I get it from writing, I get it from baking, gardening... I sort of open myself to the creative flow, which is hard to do, by the way.

I'm more focused or try to be more focused on my acting and writing and comedy and let the other stuff fall where it may.

Well, I had done nudity in one other thing, but nudity for an actress is a very particular thing. It has to do with the material, and making sure it's not gratuitous, that it's done in a way that's shot beautifully, and it's for a reason. And I'd never played a lesbian before.

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

I have visions and ideas about different things. Other actors just inspire you, so writing is something I would love to do more of. I would really be interested in doing something in that vein, writing something for myself or someone else and directing for sure.

I am just really focused in on what I love doing, but I would be a moron to not take some of my natural talent - I'm not saying I'm that talented, but I have enough acting and writing talent to go.

Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as 'good' and other sorts as 'bad' is fearful behavior.