Laura Linney Quotes

Acting keeps me alert to people, and life. I don't know, there's something about going to work early in the morning, and having to stay alert and concentrated. Maybe that keeps your mind alive.

I've been in front of the camera a million times as a musician, and even directed a few music videos. So, I know a lot about spacing, focus, blocking, etcetera. So, acting isn't totally new for me. Still, I find it fascinating, because you actually get to be another person.

Acting is different all the time. When you're on set, different films, or just even in between, it's never the same. I think that's one of the things I love about it.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

Acting is everything to me and it's at the core of every decision. Whatever importance costumes, details, lights, camera, dialogue and everything else have, if the acting is bad, cheap, or overdone everything else is just gone.

Being an actor is easy, just picture someone in a room and you outside waiting for your cue to go in. Elliot Gould's been trying that for forty years.

I think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.

When I say that the acting is sort of like a normal acting experience, I'm just talking about the interacting in actual scenes, like doing dialogue.

Actors basically are the type of person that with three seconds left, we want the ball. Give us the shot to make it or miss it. We'll take the lumps if we miss it, but we want the chance to get the glory.

The process of acting, not necessarily the business of acting, but the actual doing of it in the moment is my greatest kind of personal passion, the thing that brings me alive the most. Also, my two children.

I love actors. Part of that is my theater background and being a writer who cares about performance. Actors have usually chosen their profession because they have a dream of doing it and they want to express something about the world. That's the same thing that I have with writing. Most of the good actors get into it for those reason, rather than for reasons of fame or fortune, or anything like that, and that's where I'm coming from, as a storyteller.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

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

When I see an emotion being enacted by a great actor, I always feel I can never do that.

I was blown away watching Michael Keaton act because he was such a maniacal, evil person on set. He takes on a totally different life, and it was so amazing to watch him work.

I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough.

There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

Acting in particular is a fun job when you have a good script. I don't know about acting when you don't have a great script. I'm gonna say that's not a great job, it's kind of a dumb job. But when you have a good part in a good script, it's the best job, in a way.

Theater gave me the confidence to believe I could play something else, 'cause it was so difficult. It was me out of my comfort zone. It gave me the confidence to believe that I could push myself and challenge myself and still succeed. Yeah. I'm very, very glad I did it. And I'm very keen, now, to take what I learned there into more television and film.

The actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it.

Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long.

I always knew I wanted to be an actress, and I had the attitude that I would learn more under people like Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne or Mike Myers than from someone who had never starred in a movie. I just didn't think that someone who had never been in a movie could teach me how to act in one.

As an actor, I think most people have a tendency to want to demonstrate that they can act, they can emote.

I've always been an actor. That's my job — I can be anything you want me to be.