Lynn Shelton Quotes

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

Breathing is always key in any character. When you have a character with no voice, that makes it even more important.

I watched season four of 'The Wire.' They have subtle performances that they do through their eyes. You could watch season four with the audio off and still understand what's happening through their eyes.

The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.'

It made me alive to the fact that the most important thing sometimes is what isn't said - to prepare for moments of revelation that can be read entirely on actors' faces without dialogue.

I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

Dialogue is not always the best way to show emotion, to show your thought process, or to reveal yourself, as a character.

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

You can almost read any emotion through someone's eyes.

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look.

Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.

There is a tendency to underestimate the power of what we can do without words. Sometimes you can make a scene even more powerful and precise without dialogue.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

I found out was, by the rhythm of my chewing, how I chewed fast, slow or what have you, I could tell the audience what my character was thinking and feeling.

I don't need dialogue to convey emotion or thoughts to my audience.

I'm a very physical actor; everything I do is pretty much body-oriented. I sometimes am able to deliver information just with a look; my face does two or three different things, and it says it all.

You can tell a lot from someone's eyes.

I like to use my hands. When I was in theatre in college, that was one of my biggest notes: 'You use your hands too much.'

As an actor, you have many tools - your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don't say is more important than what you say. That's not so much the case for stage.

I remembered a mantra that one of my teachers used to tell me at drama school, that every thought will pass across your face. Even if you're thinking about Shreddies the camera will read it.

In a Western, you talk more with your eyes and your actions than you do with big speeches. I love that.

I think there's a great deal of information you can convey with looks or silence.

It's a good challenge as an actor to express feelings without saying too many words.