Karl Urban Quotes

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way.

It's like playing tennis, you play a different rally with different people. Every actor is different and the chemistry between actors is different.

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.

For me, the more talented the actor is that I'm working with, the easier my job is because the circumstances of a scene are easier to believe when the people around you are in the moment just as much as you are.

To do a comedy team, it requires so much extracurricular stuff, so much compromise, so much intuitiveness to know what the other guy is doing. That's why it's so hard to do it.

When I do the roles, when I'm in the room and auditioning, I'll ask the director if they're cool with me adding stuff, or just improvising while we're doing it. And I would say, like, 90 percent of the time, they say, 'Absolutely.'

It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with.

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves.

The art of acting is to pitch good. You do the pitching and hope that the other person catches the ball and does some good pitching back to you.

It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.

As soon as you get two actors in a room and they're locking eyes, they're doing a scene.

Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.

But when you work with the director and the real person who is playing opposite you, it changes everything. You are almost in a working session. I was very comfortable, and that's maybe what helped me to get the part.

When you've got good actors, they're going to come up with good stuff, but you're never quite sure how the dynamics are going to work between them.

That's what acting is. You're not alone. It's reacting. That's what we do.

I enjoy working with actors so much and having the chance to be surprised by them.

When you're on set with an actor like Derek Jacobi, it's not hard to tell the truth when you're looking in his eyes, and he's so open and creative and ready to play.

Acting is about reacting, and it's not easy to do that when you don't have a good co-star.

I like to have the actors do their thing. And then brief them what to do differently in take two.

I don't know about the time those songs were written. But he was jamming with someone in Colorado or San Francisco, and I'm sure he was working on the lyrics right up to the show because they were really relevant for the situation.

It's the most amazing cast, a dream cast. We laugh all the time.

I like a lot of takes. I just go on until the actors get it right.

I'm the sort of actor who likes to talk about what we're going to do.