Geraldine Page Quotes

My acting range has always been something between the two extremes of 'raises left eyebrow' and 'raises right eyebrow.'

It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

When I am dubbing for my character, if I laugh at the figure on the screen, I know I have done well.

As an actor, my body is my tool to flesh out the roles I play.

To be a good actor, you need to be able to emote with your body.

The number one job of an actor is to be a character and never let the acting show.

An actor's job is to find variations of the same emotion in his being so that every time he expresses grief or joy, it doesn't look the same.

None of the characters I've played are really like me. That would be boring. That wouldn't be acting.

The better I am at observing moments in life, the better I'll be at showing them in my acting.

Practice makes an actor excel. It is like cycling and motor driving. It is an art, which can be learnt and practised.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. It's very important for me to know my lines, know them so well that I don't have to think about them.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

As an actor, you try to put a little bit of yourself in everything you do.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

That is one of the first things my family, my mother and my grandfather, had taught me about acting: 'Use your eyes!' Not being able to do that physical aspect of it, and having to put it all into your voice? That was a little bit of a challenge.

When preparing a role, I work first on the body language and physical aspects of the performance; the psychological dimension comes naturally once I'm in character.

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.

To the image of the characters, I do change my appearance. For example, I gain weight and I lose weight sometimes, and I grow my hair and cut it. Acting is all about physical expression, so I need to change my appearance for all the characters.

When I go from a role with heavy prosthetic makeup, which I've done quite a bit of as well, and then do a role where I'm not wearing any, I have to be conscious of toning everything down. Because when you're wearing prosthetic makeup, of course, you have to really move your face a lot more to convey things through the makeup.

The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!

I don't think I would be a good actor! People enjoyed 'Dancing With the Stars' because I was myself, and every time they told me to say something, I would say my own words, so I don't think I could follow a script well!