Mary Gaitskill Quotes

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.

I play a character every day of my life, and I don't want to play a character as myself. They can judge me as an actress, not as a person. I'm not a spokeswoman for Anna.

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know.

I believe your thoughts are your thoughts, but are you a human being in front of the camera, or an actor? They are two different things.

Actors play different characters in every project they do. Though it has nothing to do with my craft, the red carpet gives me the opportunity to show who I really am and be myself.

I'm more comfortable doing a character than being myself.

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public.

The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.

Being an actor, you are recognized for being somebody else, whereas these books are distilled from me.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

I do not want to play a character who is exactly like me.

I think the best acting is when you allow yourself to be kind of vulnerable in the moment.

Like, that was weird in 'Hamlet 2,' because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, 'Oh, I'm not playing myself. I'm some weird version of myself.' So as an actress, you're always playing something, I don't even know who I am, how could I become me? I don't know what that is.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing.

To be able to pretend to be something that I'm frankly not is very liberating and exciting.

Dandyism is a lie which reveals the truth, and the truth is that we are what we pretend to be.

When you're playing a romantic version of a real person, you're playing a version of the truth.

That's the thing about acting - you can't fake it.

Often, when I finish a film, I'll have that feeling inside me: 'I never want to do this ever again. I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to be myself and do that.'

I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.

I love to act and put on a show, but you're playing a character all the time. For music, it's really just me being myself.

In my work, I want to convince people that I'm that character. If they know everything about Lesley Manville - private life, all of that stuff - it doesn't help. So the kind of anonymity I enjoy is key.

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

Acting to me is real life - I don't act.