Bill Condon Quotes

As an actor, I love working with directors. As much as I love working with other actors.

The first feature film I did, when I did 'Night Shift,' I improvised quite a bit because I would improvise at the audition, so sometimes I would return to the original lines, and then when I was on set, I would improvise even more.

Being on set is like being in college, for me, because I get to watch other people perform and I can learn from them if I listen and pay attention.

It was really fun being in Tara's trailer, working on my lines. Tara is such an amazing actress. She's so good at what she does. I learned a lot from watching her.

It was quite natural - the first day I got to the set I was really nervous, but I loved the whole experience.

Every time you go on a set, it's a whole different world, and I love that.

Stage is definitely my home first and foremost - I still feel like I'm yet to earn my stripes on set.

Obviously, I play a villain in 'Downton Abbey'. As an actor, you want to get a variety of roles, so to be offered the part of Joe, it was perfect.

So I regard my part in Genevieve as a real challenge.

There's no better training than working on a soap opera because of the amount of hours, the amount of pages you do a day are unbelievable. It's the best training I had in terms of discipline.

Acting to me is always reacting.

Acting is all I know; being on a set is all I know.

I'm more interested in knowing my cues than my lines. If you know what your cues are, then you know what your reaction is going to be to them. Acting is about reacting, and if I can kind of purely react, that's easier for me.

I'm pretty sure I became an actress solely because of craft services. When you're a kid and there's a lady walking around with a tray of chocolate and other free candy, that's the best reason to be in the industry!

Nothing can teach you what it's like to work on a film set, and the best education there can be for an actor is to walk up the street and observe human nature.

I love working with actors. That's what the set really is, for me. It's my time with the actors.

We rehearsed our 'Scarface' to the nines. Long period of rehearsal, so that by the time we started to shoot, it was almost like doing a play. We all had a grand time doing it. It was a wonderful cast.

I'm not a big fan of table reads or sitting around a table and reading a script. I'd rather do it on set and do it for real.

I'd love to work with Sir Anthony Hopkins, but if that doesn't happen, I'd sneak on to a film set and watch him at work. He is a compelling actor.

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.

I know how to hit a mark without looking. I instinctively know where my eye line should be. That's all 100%. But your character and the story are always different, so the emotional part is not muscle memory. You're still surprised by stuff and get the adrenaline.

As an actor, when you're winning the moment over, there's a truth to your intention. You might laugh at it or you might cry at it, but I think your visceral reaction to it is a reaction to the truth of the moment.

I'm such a carnivorous researcher as an actor - I chew it up like it's meat, and I really don't know how to do that without the people that are producing or creating or writing that which they want me to chew up.

As an actor, I love the feeling of being on set and the camaraderie of working on something together.

I really enjoyed working with Mariah, Alfre Woodward's character, because she's a wonderful actor, and I felt we had a natural chemistry that was reflective of real family members.