Vir Das Quotes

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.

The worst acting is about imitation.

I think of myself as an actor. The duty of an actor is to be able to impersonate anything - a child, an old man, a tree, a chair, a woman.

All actors are on the run from some demon or other.

It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.

When I did 'Jump Street', I created that character; it was all me. I walked in and was just me. I could get out of bed and walk on set and be dressed.

In film, you're always using your tools, your body, your voice, your emotions, but onstage, you use them in a different way.

My style is an extension of acting and an outcome of some serious lessons I picked up learning when I did theatre in my early days.

You can't follow another actor's performance. You can't be Robert DeNiro, because you're not Robert DeNiro, and, you know, he is.

I think I'm sort of method in a sense, and I enjoy, you know, trying to find that reality in fake emotion.

I want to act, perform in my own way.

You can't have the real thing on camera - that's the nature of cinema. When you see people like Daniel Day-Lewis and Ralph Fiennes screaming and hyperventilating, you're seeing the phoniest kind of bad acting. You may as well have a 'men at work' sign. It's not acting if you can see it.

I like it when actors offer something new with their performances, and elevate the scene. I don't restrict an actor.

You can be more creative in acting by bringing your character to life and bringing a piece of you that wasn't there before. You could have five different actors play one role, and all five of them would be so different because each person brings a different piece of them into it.

People think acting is just memorizing lines and doing facial expressions. No it's about traveling along a path of discovery, intention and connection.

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.

Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.

I have learned that acting is not about beauty.

It's a strange thing we do as actors. I'm walking out the door, and I'll say, 'O.K., honey, I'm off to take my clothes off.'

I have this assemblage of small facts, which looks like intelligence but no real depth of knowledge about anything. That's why I'm an actor.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I know very little about acting. I'm just an incredibly gifted faker.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.