Nicolas Cage Quotes

When you're playing a character, you don't really want to have an opinion about where you're going to end up. Otherwise, you can't really stay in the moment and in your character.

A lot of American actors I work with are in character all day long. You can't talk to them. It's Method and the whole thing.

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.

You can't generalise, of course, but there is a school of American acting where there is a kind of pride in the number of takes you can do.

With most British actors, it's amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.

I immerse myself right into my character whether or not I'm relating to people live as an actor on stage or whatever.

Since I was from the theater, that's how I learned how to go through the process of being a character. That's how I learned, and that's what I was comfortable doing. And then, the first feature films, I'm sure I was no fun because I did not want to be spontaneous in that filmic way that really can work for you.

I'm not a Method person, so I'm not like in character all the time.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.

It was a lot of fun to play a character [in Swiss Army Man] with no inhibitions, and with no knowledge of the world, and who comes into the world kind of like a blank slate. It means there's no template or blueprint for how you need to play certain scenes.

Part of being an actor is being able to contribute to a character's rhythms. If there's room to explore, you find a happy medium. We almost always get it as written, and then, we throw some improvs in or some alternatives.

I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.

As an actor, I think it's always important to separate yourself from your characters because, when you include yourself in a character, you're taking a liberty that you don't really have unless you're life is that incredibly close to the character.

I just love to act. I like to get away, totally play a different character, someone you can get really involved in knowing. I've gotten really involved in some characters and written down little summaries of where they live and what their families are like.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

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.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

I never act my characters - I am them.

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

I like to try to change things up a bit in the way that actors such as Philip Seymour Hoffman or Michael Fassbender did and do.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

I don't usually like talking about acting or what my process is, and all those kinds of things, because I don't necessarily think it's helpful to talk about how I do my job.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.