James Mangold Quotes

I think actors are attracted to the idea of other identities and concealing themselves behind some other identity.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

As actors, we get to hide. You can change your hair and your accent, and it's not you. You have tricks, these masks.

I became an actor so I didn't have to be myself.

You have to remember we're just performers, that we seldom have any kind of grasp on real life.

Acting is what I do with who I am.

My mother took me to a lot of operas and when I was eight I got the opportunity to be in one and I realized that transformation into these make-believe situations was possible. I decided that was essentially what I wanted to do with my life.

As an actor, there are so many different people to hide behind.

To me, getting to do music and videos, you work on a character. Being onstage is acting; you get to be larger than life and larger than yourself.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

Characters don't belong to anyone, not even the person who plays them.

I'm always in disguise in one form or another in my plays.

When you're acting, you're escaping and hiding behind something. It's cliched to say, but there's a safety there.

Acting is like lying. The art of lying well. I'm paid to tell elaborate lies.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I have played so many romantic roles that I don't know if I am really a romantic in real life. I get confused about the real me.

I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.

What drew me to acting in the first place was disguise.

I think that's so strange, because they do know that we're all actors and we perform things that have not necessarily anything to do with us personally.

Acting to me is real life - I don't act.

An actor is someone who pretends to be somebody else. A movie star is somebody who pretends that somebody else is them.

There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again.

I know this sounds kind of crazy, but I think we're all actors.

Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on.