David Duchovny Quotes

Losing yourself in the character opens you up in a way that no amount of precise preparation can.

I don't watch rushes. My whole thing is to try to stay in the moment with the other actor, and to let it all hang. I'm not sure I'm right on that, though.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.

I was doing the work I was capable of doing with my own native talent, but when I looked at actors like Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Kim Stanley, and Geraldine Page, I knew that they knew something that I didn't know. I wanted to find out what that was.

When I'm playing any of my characters, I totally go into the realm of the character. That's when I'm able to come up with the most creative stuff, and I believe that's what connects with the audience.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.

I guess I'm probably a Method actor; I don't know... I just think of it as staying in the zone.

In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.

I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.

First of all, the actor needs to get out of the character's way. You follow the character without judgment or prejudice or preconceived ideas.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting.

There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.

I love the possibility that anything can happen in any moment with acting. That you have the opportunity to experience lives and adventures that you may not have otherwise.

I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer.

To me, a lot of what makes a good actor is not what a teacher tells you to do but how you respond when you're on your own.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.

So, to come In with a set routine it's something I've never believed in. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.