Michael Gracey Quotes

When you rehearse a play, you spend four weeks with one goal in mind - to wean the actor away from you. You want the actor to become completely independent and to understand all the emotional and psychological moves within the character.

Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.

When I find those actors who are going to work that hard and collaborate that deeply, my role is to make sure there's a whole lot there for them to work with.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

As an actor, I know it is my job to shape myself for a role - any role.

I am trained in theatre, and so I take time to study and get into the skin of a character.

I think it's important as an actor to stay really ignorant.

I don't really have choices in the material I get. So I have to make the choices in the way I play the characters.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.

To me, getting notes, honing the part, and refining the role is the real fun of the play.

Basically, the way you get into any role is just doing research on the type of character you're playing.

As an actor, I like to get a bit of momentum going with a character and kind of work a bit quicker. I mean, not crazy-fast, but, you know, five or six pages a day is a nice pace.

I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I'm always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing.

I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.

Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

I only work with actors who take full responsibility for their characters.