Common Quotes

I like to look at scenarios and see how people interact with each other. That's why I'm an actor because I try to recreate that. Since our daughter joined us the spectrum has widened.

I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.

But I'm trying to play into this role as much as possible and be a nicer person in real life.

I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior. I am really interested in feelings and think they are what define us as a species. When you really get it right in acting, it's an act of empathy. You feel less distant from others, and that is really exciting.

I've done teaching and things like that because if you're acting, you're becoming other human beings, and you need to have time to find who you are as well.

When you practice Buddhism, you have to always self-reflect, and you can't avoid your problems. That makes me understand human beings better. I feel that the more I do that in my own life, the more I can see how to play a character.

I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.

Acting is a job you can learn a lot in. You get to play lots of different characters with different professions and different backgrounds; they come from different places than you do, so it's really fun when you're immersing yourself in that world of that person to learn about how other people's lives are.

I love the idea of playing women I think I'm going to learn from.

It's my deepest interest as an actor: I love discovering how human beings work, how their flaws reveal themselves - how to learn and grow from that - and how characters teach me things as a woman and as a parent.

One of the reasons I took up acting was to learn to be more human, to get in touch with human emotions.

To me, acting used to be just, 'Get my face out there, get girls, make a little bit of money, make my mom proud.' It was just like sports. But there were moments in 'Moonlight' that I really felt like I had to know why he is the way he is. Or just people in general - why this person walks around with a frown on their face instead of a smile.

One of the many joys of being an actor is to understand the human psychology.

The great thing about acting is, because you're constantly playing other characters and exploring yourself because you have to find those other characters in yourself, you sort of broaden as a person over your life because you've been other people. So you can empathize with many different sorts of people. It's great in that way and I hope, therefore, as you get older as an actor, you not only get more interesting because you lived more, but you get a bit wiser as a person.

I think everybody should act! I would encourage everybody to do one thing, join a theater class or something. It's so good to take a character that you think is wildly different from who you are, and to try to relate to that person and become that person is very helpful. It's hard to articulate what you learn, but you can feel the effect of these characters that you play and take with you.

I have learned never to judge any of the characters that I portay. Sometimes that is difficult to do because as a human being we tend to make judgements when we find out information about people and situations. In order to bring a character to life, though, I find that I cannot judge her or I won't be true to her.

You know, the character of Isabelle in 'Love Crime' is the only character I feel the furthest from. I have nothing to share with her, so it was really difficult. Being an actor of composition is something, but you always base yourself on something you know about.

My job playing Sam Malone was to let the audience in, to love my bar full of people. And that informed my life.

To embody a character, you have to lose all judgment about them.

What I love about being an actress is being able to really look into myself and understand another human being.

Actors tell stories and we play different characters, and not all of them are healthy.

I try to always stretch myself to fit the characters that have been presented.

I was always observing my siblings and hearing stories about their lives that turned out to be helpful as an actress.

At the end of the day, you have to find the humanity in you in each character.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.