Jim Piddock Quotes

I learned more doing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' than I did during three years at drama school.

If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy.

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience.

I've always wanted to make an improv movie because I have so much experience in it.

I took one class at Second City called Improv for Actors, and that was it, and that was only because my agent told me I had to.

I'm not the best actor I can be, so I'm just working on it. I'm not the quickest reader in the world but when I get an acting book I can read it in two days.

The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.

'Hollyoaks' is where I learnt a lot of the craft, being in front of a camera six days a week. That's certainly an experience you don't get in drama school. It invites you to be comfortable in front of the camera.

I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.

I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences.

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience.

The best way to study to be an actor is to interact genuinely with the people around you and observe and listen.

My first acting lessons were Shakespeare. The first time I ever started working with a coach was doing scenes from 'Measure for Measure,' which were tough dramatic scenes. And then 'Taming of the Shrew,' which required comedic timing. And that's the kind of stuff I love.

Soaps are the best. They really are. If you can do a soap, well, you can do anything. You have to learn pages of dialogue very quickly.

Working with Adrien Brody was like going to Julliard, but instead of four years, I went for four weeks. He was like the Albert Einstein of professors, it was just the best experience of my life. Adrien was the most influential mentor in my acting career thus far, and even after the movie he continues to mentor me.

The best way to learn how to work with actors is to have had experience of trying to act yourself - it will teach you humility if nothing else.

My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.

I have been taking classes and I'm familiar with stage, but I'm not as familiar with acting on camera.

I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.

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.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that.

As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

I don't watch anything of mine much. I haven't gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I'd be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

Occasionally, as an actor, you're not... Sometimes, at least for me, I'm not fully in the groove until the second or third take, in which I would not want to just stop. If it's a scene that takes a lot of work and time, sometimes the scene gets better with time, and sometimes it gets exhausted. I think it just depends on the scene.

I've never had an acting lesson in my life. I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.