Albert Finney Quotes

I don't think I could play a character that I couldn't relate to somehow. I'm not unfamiliar with frustration, anger, shame, helplessness and a load of other emotions that make up our psycho-soup. I try to focus on that frustration, that sense of unfairness, and multiply it.

When you are playing someone who is dealing with issues on a really personal level, if you don't bring your own issues into the equation, it's not going to feel really personal to the people watching it.

I channel a lot of my own personal relationships anytime I prep for something.

As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.

It's the only way I really know how to tell the story is to be able to kind of live through the characters. So when I find something that resonates with me, it's usually because it cuts to something very real inside of me; something that I've gone through or experienced.

Recording is more autobiographical than acting. It's me - either how I'm feeling then or once felt at some point in my life. It's all me.

It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

There are always parts of me that come out in the characters that I play - it's the only thing I have to work with and to draw off of.

I try to find what is closest to me in the character. There's many sides to personality, but it's a matter of, do you entertain those specific areas of your personality, or are you afraid to entertain them?

For me, being able to be vulnerable is difficult, but it's just something that I feel comfortable doing. I need to fully understand why, the thought-process behind the character and I have to believe it. That comes from a lot of preparation.

I tend to find characters who lack vulnerability dull.

Emotional messiness is my reason for life. In acting, it's so important.

I was a sensitive boy.

There are elements of myself in every character I do, just because you take from your real life experiences and sprinkle those into your character.

I don't think I could write about something I've never experienced or felt; all my songs are about things I've been through.

The place you have to start to be any good at this, at acting, is with yourself. Everything is inside of you, all of it - the murderer, the great mother, the therapist, the husband. Everything is inside of us.

I'm very passionate, very emotional, very sensitive. I've always been like that.

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.

I always try to find some part of a character that exists in me and plug that in.

I look for characters that speak to something in me.

I feel like we're attracted to paths in life that force us to look at our weaknesses or deficiencies as human beings. Not to get all deep on you, but that's how I feel.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

A work will only have deep resonance if the kind of darkness I can generate is something that is resident in me already.

I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.