Antonin Artaud Quotes

I'm not a method actor. I can't even explain so much what I do.

I remember in one of my early films I had a drunk scene. It was Kiss Me Goodbye, with Sally Field, and I was playing this kind of nerdy guy who gets drunk and dances. And so I thought, "Oh well, I'll just get drunk and do the dance." And it was wonderful, but then I had the rest of the day, and the next day. So I learned that you don't really have to do the things that your character is doing. But us actors, we use something called sense memory. I've certainly been drunk before, and part of my job is to recall that without getting drunk.

As an actor, you use the things from yourself that you can apply to the character.

I still do a form of sense memory. It honestly depends on the job. It depends on the other people you're working with, how the other actor works. It's take a little from here, take a little from there.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

As actors we're always trying to use our creative imagination.

I'm not a method actress.

The work for the actor is always the same. We're looking for a human being. We're looking for believable human behavior.

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.

As an actor, I feel like I'm somebody who, when somebody gives me a mark, I don't want to hit it. I don't like that. But then, without even knowing it, I just hit it.

You obviously don't have to be a murderer to play a murderer or you don't have to be a dictator to play a dictator. So, you're an actor. You come up with whatever you come up with to play that part.

A great actor is simply just seeing him or herself, and reacting to what exists around them.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.

I would make the tea on a Daniel Day-Lewis set just to observe how he crafts roles like he did in 'My Left Foot.' That was the equivalent of seeing Haley's Comet for me. I just couldn't understand how that was possible.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

It's a writer's or director's role to be cerebral, whereas for an actor it should be a visceral, gut thing. When the action starts, it's best to turn the brain off and let it become an instinctual thing.

As actors, you play people who are not yourselves!

I'm not Jack Nicholson. I'm not Brando. But I do mumble.

I'm a method actress in my songs, which is why it's hard to sing them.

I don't know if I do anything to get into character: I just go with my gut.

A lot of actors and actresses pull from past experiences.

I understand what it is that actors do. They embody someone that they aren't.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.