Rose McIver Quotes

Television is a lot of fun. It's faster-paced. The schedule is really desirable, I guess. But as far as films go, and I've only done a couple; film is like a definitive beginning, middle and end. You know your character's arch.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

The great thing about a trilogy is that it feels like you've got a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Although when I start a novel I know how it will begin and end, I like to let the people within the story take me on a journey between those points without having a fixed plan.

In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.

What's great in theater is that you can sustain the arc of a character for a full three hours, whereas in film or TV, you have to create that arc in little pieces, and usually out of sequence.

You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

Working with Danny Thomas was truly an adventure every week. Danny didn't always say the words as they appeared in the script. I learned more by osmosis than by sitting down together. He was a force to be reckoned with: an explorer of television.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

A film has a beginning, middle, and an end. There is a certain amount of time that you have to embody these people. You know the entire story arch. But on TV, you have to let your guard down. You don't know how long the show is going to last. There is this excitement that comes with developing a character long-term.

It's a whole other way of working when you work in films: You know exactly the arc of your character.

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

My job as an actress is to make things work and come up with reasons of my own and not just fill in the blanks for anybody else, you know what I mean?

As an actor, acting is like playing a sport. You do this thing that's intangible, and while it's happening, it's great. But then when it's done, there's really no tangible product. Someone else is capturing it and turning it into something tangible.

One of the great things about a TV series is that it's different to a movie - in a movie you obviously know the beginning, the middle and the end of what you're going to do. With a TV series it's unfolding, and you're discovering with every episode.

I've probably had my best time acting - or not acting, or trying to not act - on things like 'The Low Down' or 'Treacle Jr.' I'm happiest doing things like that. Not just because they're lead roles, but because there's more freedom in them.

That's the great thing about being an actor, you get to try out lots of things for your roles.

I'm an entertainer, so in whatever form I entertain... The thing about being a rapper is that you have more control over your form, whereas with acting you have to compromise a lot.

After 30 years in the theater, I'm used to having a great amount of control over what I do. But with '24', you place your character's life in the writers' hands, and you have no idea what's going to happen until you're sent the next pages.

On 'Think Like a Man,' they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

Theme is great for people who like to approach stories that way, but it's an organizing principle that helps us write a story that has some weight; it's not something that all readers have to care about.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

In the writers' room, when we talk about each episode, we first talk about the character journey of the episode.

In films you do a scene, you play around with it and unless you're doing a lot of reshooting, which no one has the luxury to do, you deal with the problem for a day and then you move on. On some level, it never allows you to go very deep into what performing is about.

You try to pick good stories, and that's pretty much all the control you have as an actor.