Alex O'Loughlin Quotes

It's true I have a hard time with the notion of creating a character. And I feel it's a limit. I'm always really impressed by actors who are able to construct a character, like Johnny Depp.

I never had a thing for movie stars. I was into the guys who could transform. Sean Penn. Daniel Day-Lewis. The ones who privileged the craft.

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

I think good acting is always character acting.

In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story.

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

When I see an emotion being enacted by a great actor, I always feel I can never do that.

I was blown away watching Michael Keaton act because he was such a maniacal, evil person on set. He takes on a totally different life, and it was so amazing to watch him work.

When you watch me on the screen, you should not be able to recognise me. If people say, you're a natural and an organic actor, that's an insult. If you're being yourself all the time on screen, that means you don't know how to act.

Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.

As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.

Some of the great characters that I've played had to be transformational.

I always wanted to be a character actor. I love watching movies where you don't recognize someone because they're so lost in the part.

I feel like my responsibility as an actor is to make characters as compelling and believable as possible.

Any good actor is a character actor.

I find it quite easy to get in and out of character. I don't know why - I guess it's my job.

With some actors, you can tell when they're acting all by themselves, no matter who else is in the screen.

You try, as an actor, to wear a mask; you're serving a story.

Andy Serkis is one of the best actors I have ever worked with. He might be the best actor I have ever worked with.

Any actor I admire and enjoy working with - Sergi Lopez as the bad guy in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' or the little girl who played young Mako in 'Pacific Rim,' it makes no difference - I like actors with a very strong centre.

Sometimes you read things that people don't even notice in a performance, that you just are moved by or understand that this actor is really living his or her life on the screen. The first time I realized that was when I watched Brando in 'On the Waterfront.'

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

I have to say that one person I learned from the most as an actor in my life is Emmy Rossum. She is so insanely talented in the sense that when watching her work, it just turns into watching her speak - it's no longer acting; that's how good she is! She just becomes the person.

The great character actors are now the actors whose work has the element of ritual sacrifice once claimed by the DeNiros of the world, as well as the element of danger - the actors who thrill us by going for broke.

The skill of a gifted actor, their ability to interpret and develop a character and truly bring her or him to life, is one that I admire enormously.