Anthony Hopkins Quotes

I'm not a method actress.

I'm not a method actor. I can't even explain so much what I do.

I was a serious method actor until I visited this site.

That's one of my little expressions. I never really studied acting so I kind of kiddingly talk about "building your circle" and "mooding up," because I really didn't learn any technique.

I think an actor can actually gather moments, memories and emotions for his next character. So, it's a constant work.

Almost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor's Studio.

For the actor, The Lee Strasberg Notes are an indispensable companion.

I still do a form of sense memory. It honestly depends on the job. It depends on the other people you're working with, how the other actor works. It's take a little from here, take a little from there.

An actor definitely has to be in the past a well as the present; an actor must react to past experiences every minute, every second.

When I'm creating a character, it's a little bit like what my theater teachers used to tell me about Stanislavsky, like if you're using sense memory to do a scene - if you have to cry in a scene, you try to remember something in your life that made you cry and you use that in order to get the tears.

I like to think of myself as an actress, I think of going through all of the films as my kind of film academy, the way that I've learnt.

It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting 'inside' a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first.

I always think upon Lee Strasberg with warmth, and reviewing his wisdom is a pleasure.

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.

I remember in one of my early films I had a drunk scene. It was Kiss Me Goodbye, with Sally Field, and I was playing this kind of nerdy guy who gets drunk and dances. And so I thought, "Oh well, I'll just get drunk and do the dance." And it was wonderful, but then I had the rest of the day, and the next day. So I learned that you don't really have to do the things that your character is doing. But us actors, we use something called sense memory. I've certainly been drunk before, and part of my job is to recall that without getting drunk.

One of the greatest things I've learned, as an actor, was how to talk to actors.

I've never been trained as an actor. I'm no Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Johnny Depp.

Actually I want to scare away method actors because it's a pain. It's like, 'Come on, what are you doing? It's not real. What are you doing? Oh, you're really brooding. Okay, good. Go to your trailer. I'll see you in an hour.'

As an actor, I think every moment in your life is giving you a new set of tools. You’re constantly absorbing new information that you can put back onto the screen.

A great actor is simply just seeing him or herself, and reacting to what exists around them.

I know, because I tried all sorts of ways of being in character, and the best way is to be totally straight.

I think it is very important to be a method actor.

Sometimes you can just step into the character, and you get all your feelings and emotions just from sympathizing with her and being her. But then, other times, you just have to resort back to anything that you've been through in your own life and try to play that.

I studied acting for 10 years before I went for an audition. I studied with Lee Strasberg and Actors Studio teachers, and went to the High School of Performing Arts.

I was a student of Stella Adler and then later Lee Strasberg, and they were into sensory work. At its best, acting is not about words - even when the words are important.