Jack Nicholson Quotes

There's a difference between the parts that I play and who I am and who people think I am. There's quite a big discrepancy sometimes between those things.

All of modern acting comes from Stanislavski, who was the Russian partner to Chekhov. When Chekhov was writing his plays, Stanislavski was running his theater. And Stanislavski really was the first inventor of modern acting and then everything that came out of the method and Stella Adler and the great teachers really came out of him.

I grew up the son of an acting teacher but I've never been really good at articulating what that process is. It was always a bit more internal.

I've dealt with a few method actors, and I don't know if should say this, but I think it's a bunch of nonsense. I think it's film acting and you just have to be on when the camera is rolling.

Method acting? There are quite a few methods. Mine involves a lot of talent, a glass, and some cracked ice.

I did have a knack for playing weirdos. There's still sort of this perception of me out there as being this crazy guy.

I am not a method actor, though I studied for a year with Lee Strasburg.

I know a lot of people think, 'She's so glamorous.' But that's really not me at all.

I joined the Actors Studio and began to work with Lee Strasberg, and that changed my work.

To be honest, my life is not really as way-out and myth-loaded as people like to portray it.

Having a guy on a microphone yelling lines at you is counter to a lot of acting techniques.

You know, I don't support esoteric approaches to acting.

I have no idea what 'method actor' means.

What is more important, the reality or the perception? I am perceived to be an important designer. It's enough for me.

There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.

I think I'm more the method acting school.

I trained as an actor with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and those guys set a very high bar.

There's nothing I can control about how people see me as a person, but I can control how they think of me as an actor.

At drama school I learned the Stanislavski technique, which uses sentimental memories and bits of your past to put real emotion into the scene.

For the actor, The Lee Strasberg Notes are an indispensable companion.

Bette Davis had a phrase that called it "cigarette smoking acting" .

I was always drawn toward the Actor's Studio. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute when I first came to New York. One of my favorite teachers was one of Al [Pachino]'s teachers, a guy named Charlie Laughton, who was just a wonderful, wonderful man.

My problem with the traditional acting method was that I never understood what you were supposed to be thinking about when you're onstage.

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.

Perception is reality. If you are perceived to be something, you might as well be it because that's the truth in people's minds.