Noah Hawley Quotes

I think what actors have to do, what performers have to do to emotionally get to that place and have a camera and have your face 20 feet high on a screen, is such an incredible thing.

For a movie actor, the biggest challenge on TV is the number of close-up shots.

I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being.

But one of the hardest things for me to do was to access anger. I could do it on stage. But when I did it on film it was hard for me. That probably has to do with the intimacy of film. And my own personal issues with expressing anger. So I had to learn how to do that.

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.

That's the thing about film acting and television acting. You just release yourself and do what is true for the moment, and ignore everybody and everything and all the technical razzmatazz that goes on.

My first film, 'Like Minds,' was with Toni Colette, who was extraordinary. I mean it was basically a mini-masterclass for acting on film at a time when all you could probably see were my eyebrows bouncing up and down on screen.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

I was mainly a stage actor. I found film acting mechanical, because it was so technical - there was so much technique with the lamps and the movements of the camera.

You can see some very great theatre actors who don't work at all well on screen. They're trying too hard at it.

Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script.

It's hard being a Broadway actor going into film where you have to tone everything down. In theater, everything you're taught is to be big and broad and make everyone feel like they are right next to you, even in the last row of seats.

I found it more challenging to act in a small scene, especially if it has no dialogue and if it is a close-up with only expressions.

Things in the ring are definitely bigger, so that you can see them. But the movie world is completely different, and you have to hone things down because when that camera is so tight on you and so intimate and right up in your face, it's going to catch every little thing that you give it, and it's very easy to overdo it.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

That's what acting is about - for me, at least - tackling different personas and characters.

A lot of actors will complain about the green screen work, but what you do get to do is what you probably should have learned, from the beginning, on stage. You have to create it in your mind and really go there to bring it. Part of the fun of acting is those challenges. You feel goofy, but sometimes that's a good feeling.

Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to.

In film, there are always things that could conceivably create artificiality in any performance.

I think film and television actually is a lot harder. Acting onstage is physically more arduous, but to get to emotional truth within a scene, it's much tougher to do it on film.

I think one of the things that people take for granted when they watch a film is the actors have to exhibit an extraordinary amount of force to block out the stuff that isn't a part of their reality. And when the audience sees it, they're seeing everything the actor isn't seeing.

When did Jimmy Stewart not play Jimmy Stewart? When did John Wayne not play John Wayne? But that's what we like about them. When you talk about acting, you really have to respond to somebody's personality.

I never had a thing for movie stars. I was into the guys who could transform. Sean Penn. Daniel Day-Lewis. The ones who privileged the craft.

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

I do sometimes wonder if people think, 'Oh we'll have her because she cries well.' The odd thing is I don't really know where it comes from. If the script is good, I find I can usually cry without too much trouble - in fact, the hard thing is trying to get me to stop. But I'm not really a crier in real life. I'm not a dramatic person, you see.