Paul Dano Quotes

There is a part of your brain that has to stop when you're acting. You have to be in the moment and dare to fly. Words can't be on your mind.

Do you think I am standing here, making this up as I go? I am sorry to disillusion you. I am not Robin Williams. I am the king of the pen.

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.

As an actor, the only thing you have is your instinct and your imagination.

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

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

The most important thing is to keep creating and following my inklings as they come into being and acting on them.

Being able to improvise is the basis for creating all characters and situations, for everything to do with performing, really. And it's good therapy as well.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

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 try to live instinctively. And I guess I've always enjoyed living in a fantasy world, daydreaming.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

I always think instinct is more interesting than anything you can think up. I mistrust and am rather bored with actors who are of the Stanislavski school who think about detail.

It's what still excites me most about acting: letting your imagination go places it's never been before. There's nothing better than that.

People may think I'm trying something new by telling stories, but they're just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That's what I do.

It's important not to think too much about what you do.

Acting is an expression of imagination. No firsthand knowledge is necessary.

For me, when I do my best acting, it's mainly imagination. Then I really have a lot of fun with it.

For me, the whole idea of performance is not being self-aware, and then sort of just experiencing.

As far as I'm concerned, dance is a passion for me. I don't do homework and go to the sets. I believe in being impromptu. I just go on the sets and start doing whatever comes to my mind.

Acting has always been instinctive to me.

I come from standup and improv.