Yvette Mimieux Quotes

Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.

Why do you act? You act for an audience. In the theatre, you're in their presence. Film stars don't know what it is to have an audience.

There is probably some great acting that goes on in movies from people who have never been on a stage, but if you are in for the long haul, you'd be missing an enormous part of what being an actor is if you're not part of theater.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.

I had acting teachers, and one of the things that was encouraged was to keep it fresh, to be spontaneous. That's the magic of film often.

The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive.

And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It's incredibly, mind numbingly slow.

I think film and television actually is a lot harder. Acting onstage is physically more arduous, but to get to emotional truth within a scene, it's much tougher to do it on film.

For a movie actor, the biggest challenge on TV is the number of close-up shots.

It is the same actor in theatre and cinema, just the technique of acting changes.

I love the art of acting, so I don't care if I'm in a movie with 10 people, two people, or by myself. I just really enjoy it.

Theater to me is acting but it's more real on film.

My wife says that stage acting is like being on a tightrope with no net, and being in the movies, there is a net - because you stop and go over it again. It's very technical and mechanical. On stage you're on your own.

The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.

One of the skills you have to master in theater is the ability to make the audience believe that things that aren't there are there - just like when you're acting against CGI. Also, in a theater, the people in the back row can't see the whites of your eyes. Or your lips moving as you deliver dialogue.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Acting must be scaled down for the screen. A drawing room is a lot smaller than a theatre auditorium.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

For me, acting was something I fell into.

I think the 'Lethal Weapon' movies contain my favorite performances. It sounds really crummy, I know, but although the work doesn't look hard, it's difficult to create 'effortless' on screen.

Juilliard definitely emphasizes the theater. They don't train - at all really - for film acting. It's mostly process-oriented, pretty much for the stage.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

I'd definitely like to widen my film range. I mean, I'd love to do some theater.