John Leguizamo Quotes

On the acting side, they actually tell us to lie about things that we don't know and later scramble to learn. "Do you ride horses?" "Yes, I do." I think scrambling is the death of most of us in the industry.

'Cavemen' was obviously a big opportunity. I learned a lot about how to act and about the politics of being on a set every day. Like, who do you have to listen to and who you don't have to listen to.

I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough.

It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

Theater was such a different school of acting. But it really is a foundation of everything. It's where it all started! And I feel like I learned so much.

I think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.

The more you're able to understand how to do a good dramatic performance, that can inform your comedy. It all informs one another. And it keeps everything interesting.

When you have a full page of well-written dialogue that has a thought process to it, it is pretty easy to memorize. It's a lot easier to memorize than if you're in a scene and other people are talking, and you have maybe one word or one sentence that you have to interject at the right time and in a natural way.

I think you have to be schizoid three different ways to be an actor ... You have to be a human being. Then you have to be the character you're playing. And on top of that you've got to be the guy sitting out there in Row 10, watching yourself and judging yourself. That's why most of us are crazy to start with, or go nuts once we get into it.

Acting is where my heart is. I love acting.

What I've discovered is, really, acting is acting is acting. It's all the same. Seventy-five percent of the skills are the same in both media.

I really love being a character actor. I have to say I wish it were a little easier. There are still a lot of things that I don't get, like I do wish I had more of my own.

When I am making a film, I know what to do in front of a camera. What frightens me are the scenes with dialogue. Sometime they really want me to speak perfectly and I don't like that.

Theatrical times are different from concert times, to put it simply. Taking a figure like [Mahatma] Gandhi and setting him on a stage requires thinking about what theater is about and what the whole experience is about and what we're trying to communicate in that way, so you get into certain less abstract considerations.

If you're playing a fictional character, you can create a character, you can sort of take certain liberties. And when you're playing a real person who's actually standing there watching you, you know, it's - you do feel a weight. You know, you feel an obligation to not only be - to give the best performance that you can, but to make sure that you represent this person.

I love to act, I've always wanted to be an actor. I think that acting and fiction go nicely together - being able to visualize language as something you perform, not just something that's there on the page.

If I'm not good at acting, I'm not good at anything else.

I really, specifically, love acting, and I think it's a really cool thing to be really indulgent and follow that.

The hardest thing about movies is doing take 12, 13, and 14, and finding new ways to do the same lines. So the early takes are actually easier and I think there's more surprises in them.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

I've often thought that it would be great to do some acting because nobody would think that I would be able to do it and it scares the living hell out of me.

There's nothing hard about acting except the long hours.

The important thing in acting is to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to laugh, I think of my sex life. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life.

I wouldn't want to try to make a living as an actor. I think actors... I give them a lot of credit for what they go through, but putting myself on the line like that would make me crazy.