Barry Jenkins Quotes

The best thing an actor can bring to a role is himself - that's no secret.

I never look at the size of the film when I'm looking for a part.

I've always believed that it's the film that chooses the actor and not the other way round.

I think talent, especially in acting, is being wholly yourself within the context of yourself.

When you are cast for a role, it's because of everything that makes you who you are in that moment in time. No one else has that. That's a unique, powerful thing to hold.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

I'm an actress. It's my passion.

As an actor, you try to put a little bit of yourself in everything you do.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

What's fun about being an actress is you change all the time.

As somebody who has wanted to be an actor who is very young, I can relate to somebody who has been practicing oboe five days a week since they were very young. The physicality of anything a character does is a tremendous gift.

I have a secret aspiration to be considered for a part where it doesn't matter what you look like to play it.

I open myself up every time I walk on screen and give you everything that I am. There are parts of me that are in every movie that I've done. That to me is what my job is.

I love a mask. It's why I've got a thing about good writing. When you're acting, you're going into someone else's work. You're behind his words; it's not you.

I think I was first choice for the part. I don't know - that's what they always tell you anyway. I didn't have to do any audition for the part. Sam saw me in Dinner and the whole thing slipped into place.

I want to do films that challenge me. I want to do what the actors I look up to are doing - the Gary Oldmans and Daniel Day-Lewises.

It sounds maybe a little old fashioned, but the parts I want to play and I do play, you don't want to inject too much of your own personality. What you sacrifice then is a slight mystery.

I think filmmakers are always interested in getting the best actor that they can find, the person who's the most right for it.

I'm hardly physically right for the hero parts, now am I?

I guess maybe directors see a face that seems to have been lived in. I know that my face has been lived in, yeah.

Acting really suited me because I could connect as an actor to emotion.

It's a challenge, writing about actors, especially a good actor, because you can't always tell when they're being honest and when they're pretending - that is, when they're acting. The really good ones don't always seem to know themselves.

Every actor turns everything round to their character.

Character is plot, and casting is character.

My job was to play my character in the best way that I could, and hopefully people will enjoy that.