Beth Grant Quotes

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

Sometimes the writing can be so good that the actor doesn't really have to do anything.

When you see something that is well-written, the actors can get behind it.

I know from teaching that actors want to act. Even the subtlest actors can do a little too much.

If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.

On stage you need to emphasize every emotion. But on screen you need to tone everything down and make it believable.

If I have anything to offer as an actor, it's only my ability to make the person real.

Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with. And then my job is almost done, with a great script, obviously.

It's eighty percent script and twenty percent you get great actors. There's nothing else to it.

As an actor, you work to the script: that's our main priority. But you have to be aware and look around for things that help you bring that little bit extra, that touch of realism that rams the point home.

If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.

Every character I've played is goofy, but it has to have some type of reality.

I'm just first of all looking for a part that's well written and speaks to me.

I like method actors who don't focus on the glamorous side, but on realistic acting.

I'm excited to play any character that is based in reality. And I'd be even more excited if I can add a comic element to my role.

If actors are trying to convey, in a smart way, the context of the scene, that becomes too self-conscious.

A movie will live or die with your casting.

A lot of actors, we aren't that special; you get a well-written scene, and it's virtually actor-proof.

Flashy characters are more entertaining to people because you get it. You don't have to work to get someone who says what they mean and says what they think. They're out there. It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness.

Some actors are better with words than me. I prefer to play it rather than say it - and keep people thinking.

I am myself sometimes, and I do state my opinions, but not in a comedy routine and not in my character. There always has to be some sort of layer to it.

Doing film and television demands a kind of simplicity. If you think something differently, the camera will pick it up.

You never want to just be outrageous for outrageous' sake 'cause then it doesn't work, and it's not believable. You want to be as true to whatever character you're playing.

I think actors always find the dialogue doesn't quite fit, so you always have to play with it.

People forget, most of the times we audition with people who aren't necessarily actors. So it doesn't matter who or what's in front of you: you still have to have the same realism and invested emotions.