Daniel Day-Lewis Quotes

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.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

I don't approach a role by saying I'll be unsavory or unlikable.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

I feel like there are things I can relate to in every character. But I feel like when you read a script, you don't get to see the definition behind someone, you just get to read what the person goes through and find a place to come from to make it real.

I always tend to see, right after reading the script, the character and how I want to play it. I guess that's sort of most of the work, preparing for the role, but almost the creation of the character seems to go on as I read through the script.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

What I mostly do is take the script, analyse the hell out of it, see what's in there, see what kind of person I'm dealing with, and then forget I'm playing a father and just play a person who exemplifies all those things.

That's what I love about acting, is playing different roles. I want to work for the character, and not make it work for me.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

I do build my own backstory as an actor. It's important to know where your characters have come from in order to know where they're going - in order to exist in that state of being.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

Well, with each character that I play in my life as an actor, I try to figure out how to find the challenge.

I have a tendency as an actress in general to ground my characters. Even when doing outlandish characters, that's my instinct.

Every actor turns everything round to their character.

Whether you need to like a character, I don't think that's necessary in order to portray him.

I really enjoy playing intelligent characters. I'm more interested in that than just emotional kind of Mum characters.

These people I play are not usually wish-fulfillment characters.

When I act, I try to understand the character, why she's behaving like that.

During the inception of 'Zindagi Gulzar Hai,' we studied the characters and the script in depth so that we could imbibe the essence of it in our performance.

I believe in method acting. Whenever I'm working on a character, I start behaving like him. I start doing these things which the character would normally do. Maybe that's the way I function as an actor, and I believe in it. And that's how I try and portray a character.

I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.

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

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.