Peter Berg Quotes

The fact that I like to make characters doesn't mean that I like to watch my characters being made, my performance.

A lot of actors are like, 'Why do I do this? My character wouldn't do this? This doesn't make sense.' And in a comedy, you kind of just need to walk into the door.

As actors, sometimes we want our character to go somewhere different than it goes, but that's being an actor.

When you're acting in a scene, you're focused on doing the scene. You can't break character and go, 'Oh my God, I love what you're doing!'

A part of being an actress that is sort of frustrating is that the writers get to tell you about your character.

I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting.

As an actor, you can steer a scene in another direction by playing it a little differently. And honestly? I like being an actor, and I want to keep having a career.

I approach directing from an actor's standpoint.

There's an impression that actors make a lot of choices. I just take what's there.

The fact of the matter is that an actor, if I'm playing a performance capture role and you're playing a live action role and we're having a scene together, there's no difference in our acting processes.

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.

As an actor, you're never really in control of the product. I think the goal is to create what you want. And if you can get as close as you can get to the creation of something, it starts with development.

Actors will, in their mind, want to 'steal the scene,' and the problem is that means the scene didn't work in the first place.

As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.

The enemies of acting are mood and attitude and other general homogenized disruptive entities. Whereas acting is about action - doing - and unless you can figure out a way to craft in an imaginative reality to which you don't submit, you're going to be out of control. You'll flip out. The job is to be surprised.

Some actors are what I call more like mirror actors, which means that they do a performance at home in front of the mirror, and then they go deliver it. I'm not that type.

Every actor prepares a scene in their own way. For me, it's about understanding the scenario, the room I'm going to be working in, the obstacles in and around the frame, etc.

I'm one of those actors who finds the part in the wardrobe.

I learned a tremendous amount about dialogue because I suffered as an actor.

I always hate it when I hear actors talking about the process of what they do, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself.

I don't really compare any of the characters I play; I try to go into them being very open to what the characters can offer and what I can bring to them and then bring a being to life.

I think I take away a naturalistic approach to acting from doing 'The Larry Sanders Show,' a way to put aside acting and just exist in the world of what's being handed to me.

I am not into method acting.

As an actor, I'm more interested in characters the longer I have lived with them.