Tom Noonan Quotes

The thing about being an actor is that you're acting. It's not that big of a deal of to play someone different from yourself.

What I love to do requires portraying different characters, and you have to separate your life from the role.

I'm an actor. I have to play weird characters, quirky characters, strange characters, sometimes characters I don't understand.

An actor has to act irrespective of the camera or location.

When I'm acting, I do what I'm supposed to do.

Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

I'm always envious of the actors who get to come to work every day and really grow deep roots there, but it is really fun playing lots of different characters.

That's the great thing about being an actor, you get to try out lots of things for your roles.

As an actor, it's amazing to get to create different characters.

What drew me to acting in the first place was disguise.

An actor is someone who pretends to be somebody else. A movie star is somebody who pretends that somebody else is them.

I love playing other people's work. I love acting.

There's a point you get to on the stage where you're not remembering lines but living them, and you reach this pure moment which, really, is more intense than what you can achieve in life.

It's very hard to tell an actor, 'Stop acting.' It's easy to tell a non-actor, because they're embarrassed when they act. They get ashamed when they do something cliche, whereas an actor is happy.

I play a crazy talk-show host, but that's not me. It's like an actor playing a role.

I do miss sometimes being onstage, because when I do film and television, it's usually so brief and funny.

There is a degree of role-playing in modeling, for sure, and you're also in a high-profile job - there are lots of similarities for sure. But when I'm acting, I've got to try and be present, and I've got to be emotionally committed to a character, both physically and intellectually.

I think the hardest thing I've had to learn is that just because people might speak a certain way in real life doesn't mean it's engaging in the theater.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

At the end of the day, an actor has to just play what's in front of him.

I've never acted, but I'm an entertainer. So I kind of used what I know from being onstage. I've done a thousand and two interviews, and I've been on camera a million times, so I'm not uncomfortable on camera, but it was interesting for me to be someone else.

I can play a doctor, and I can play a thug.

Acting is a really strange thing to do; it's very strange.

As an actor, my body is my tool to flesh out the roles I play.

Once you are in the character, you should let your inner actor take over you.