David Duchovny Quotes

Sometimes you can take those dramatic roles and maybe interject a little humor into them, and I think the reverse also works.

There is an art to acting, and there are techniques that are acquired. You can be as emotional as you'd like, as a person, but figuring out ways that you can bring specific emotions at specific times and have them be true, and relating to someone as someone that they're not, is a lot.

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

'Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy.

Having a guy on a microphone yelling lines at you is counter to a lot of acting techniques.

I was a student of Stella Adler and then later Lee Strasberg, and they were into sensory work. At its best, acting is not about words - even when the words are important.

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

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

As an actor, you are in a unique position because you're not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.

I think the buzz of acting is playing people different to you, and for me, that means traversing all genres.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

Acting is a bigger step into modelling in a way. Modelling is easier when you don't look like yourself. When you look like a different person, you feel different. Acting goes deeper into that; you have to move and talk like that character. I love it.

I'm so into playing different characters, even when I was on Nickelodeon. I just observe.

I really think that studying theater early on really helped me to be able to identify how to get into a character, because it's such a mysterious thing. Learning objective acting in the beginning of my career was the best thing I could have ever done.

On the stage you develop a character that's different from yourself. In a film they're always saying, 'Walk over here. Say this line. Be you.'

I'm not cut out to be a detective on 'Law & Order' - I laugh too easily.

I had to study acting to basically educate myself.

There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.

I think as an actor you're always learning, you're always trying to experience more things.

In acting class, you're trained to express yourself as much as you can.