Annette Bening Quotes

I will do plays as long as they're interested in having me do them. It's the biggest opportunity to learn the most about how to act. Something I discover every time I'm doing one is how little I know about acting - how important the art of listening is, and how important it is to listen with your entire body. You can tell so much of a story with stillness, and a lot of that can be from really actively listening to your scene partner.

The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking.

One of the most important things for an actor is to observe humanity.

Acting is doing. It's not speaking; it's behavior. It's something happening, even if you're only listening.

The better I am at observing moments in life, the better I'll be at showing them in my acting.

When you perform, you can convey emotions differently, and your look can reflect each of those emotions.

You need to become a good listener. As you're working, you hear someone else's lines and how you absorb them becomes your acting.

To be in theater you have to be a kind of psychologist, for you're always trying to understand character and motives.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

As an actor, to go and see those shows - great plays like 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' and Clifford Odets's 'Golden Boy' - it's so exhilarating. I'd personally love to perform the role of Jerry in Edward Albee's 'The Zoo Story.' He's a transient, lost soul, and an example of humanity at its rawest.

Acting is something I love to do. I love to perform and I love the art, the craft of it.

Acting is a mysterious process.

One of the things I'm always reminded of when I'm back on stage is how much you have to be aware of and in control of. There is no tight shot. There is no 'we're only shoulders-up this time.' No, from the top of your head to your pinky toe, you're telegraphing part of the story the entire time you're up there.

Acting is something I'm extremely passionate about.

To be a good actor you have to feel life and observe life.

One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

When you're always onstage, you really have to focus on listening and reacting.

The person you're playing must have feelings, but if he's not able to show them, then just the subtlest rumblings and nuances can say an incredible amount.

Acting is a really strange thing to do; it's very strange.

When I discovered drama, I felt a connection.

Acting is something I've always loved and enjoyed.

I know people think that acting is not quite the occupation of grown-ups, but it is actually the ultimate learning process: You get a multitude of experiences, all for the price of one life.

With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there's a non-verbal way of how to act that. There's a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It's something I still have to learn.

In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous.

Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case.