Jake Gyllenhaal Quotes

Sometimes a scene works and acting is the easiest thing in the world and you don't have to do much of anything - just enjoy yourself and listen to the other actor. When it doesn't work, then every actor has different ways of dealing with the impasse. Sometimes you use memories from the past. Whatever. It depends from job to job.

As for acting, I took drama lessons when I was in high school.

I learned so much about being an actor by being a director. More than I ever thought I would.

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

I've never worked with an acting coach, no.

I work with my acting coach to help me get into character and do pronunciation drills and tongue twisters to help me deliver lines.

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.

I have had a lot of training as an actor, but it's very different than being on set.

It was really fun being in Tara's trailer, working on my lines. Tara is such an amazing actress. She's so good at what she does. I learned a lot from watching her.

I love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours.

I find acting conservatories really important. I've gone to four different ones, and all of them provided totally different tools for me.

Having done a lot of theater, I'm used to sustaining characters over long periods of time.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

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've never done an improvised movie as a fictitious character. I think that's the challenge.

'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 started writing plays in around 1967, and at a certain point, I thought, 'I'm writing plays, I should learn about acting and what it is.' So I went to the HB Studio in New York, and I was there for about nine months.

You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera.

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.

I recommend doing some sort of acting class, something that can eventually get you in front of an agent or a manager, and practice is very important.

I trained in Toronto with a private acting teacher, who was wonderful, for years growing up.

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.

They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I've never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general.

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.

I'm kind of thinking that I might start trying to do some acting. I really enjoy role play.