Rick Baker Quotes

With writing fiction, I'm either not courageous enough or just not suited for telling truths in a more conventional way. As an actor, I inhabit those characters as I'm writing them.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

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

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

An actor works with their soul and their thought.

Creating a role is an interesting thing - each show or each situation is different.

I maintain that if you're a novelist and you go into an art museum, you'll come out a better novelist. And if you paint a picture for an hour you're a better actor at the end of it.

Well, with each character that I play in my life as an actor, I try to figure out how to find the challenge.

Acting is contained - you act for three months, then leave it - but writing is the act of creation. Writing is dangerous.

You can admire people for sure, and they're worth admiring, but you need to find that special thing about yourself. It takes working hard, getting the technique, and learning to sing and all that stuff, but the master class is about bringing yourself to the role.

The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image.

You know, essentially when you do a play you're reinterpreting a work of art that already exists. That's not what happens with a movie.

I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.

Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

I can't sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That's the way I find writing.

I've approached every character I've ever played with a poem, first and foremost.

Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.

I think like an actor when I'm acting, and I think like a director when I'm directing.

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

I don't really compare any of the characters I play; I try to go into them being very open to what the characters can offer and what I can bring to them and then bring a being to life.

Sometimes directors come to me when I have to play some horrible thing, scary or hysterical or crying; they ask, 'Did you study somewhere to be an actress?' No, this is life. That's why I think I don't want to say you need a really bad experience to be a good artist, but bad experiences in your life say something.

I don't slot actors into the image of a character that's already built. I build characters by listening to the voice and the story inside the heart of each actor. Art and life are linked, and expressed through my actors.

My acting, writing, performance - keep me on my toes.