Brian Stokes Mitchell Quotes

I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.

I'm one of those lazy actors; I like to take what the playwright wrote and work with that.

My acting style changes according to the way a character is imagined.

Always when I directed the play, I was always trying to cast people not who were necessarily like the characters, but people who I felt had the essential component that the character had, some kind of soul for it.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

I don't act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don't transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

To me, getting notes, honing the part, and refining the role is the real fun of the play.

I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand, as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me.

I'm a director's actor; I'm a storyteller's actor.

With acting, you are a small part of the creative process, and sometimes it is hard to feel like you are making an impact.

People talk about method actors, meaning someone that's prepared very, very well, or whatever they mean when they talk about it. But the right method is whatever works for you. And what works for me on any given day is going to be different.

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.

I love actors. I love working with actors. I really enjoy the process. I love having those in-depth discussions about the interior of their character, and actors really love to discuss that, too. I could talk about that for days with them. They love that, and I love that.

In the acting game, you spend a long time fighting against what the director perceives you to be. And half the time the directors don't know.

The process of rehearsal means you learn so much and really get the chance to develop your work on a character.

Whenever I work on a part, I look at the world through the filter of the character and I pick things they might use through my observations of real life.

I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know.

I used to ask Sean questions about acting. He's a brilliant actor, but I could never digest his information. I work primarily on an intuitive level.

I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'

I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character.