Peter Mayhew Quotes

I found it more challenging to act in a small scene, especially if it has no dialogue and if it is a close-up with only expressions.

I'm a very physical actor; everything I do is pretty much body-oriented. I sometimes am able to deliver information just with a look; my face does two or three different things, and it says it all.

Acting is doing. It's not speaking; it's behavior. It's something happening, even if you're only listening.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look.

I found out was, by the rhythm of my chewing, how I chewed fast, slow or what have you, I could tell the audience what my character was thinking and feeling.

The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking.

The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.'

I remember seeing the performance Samantha Morton did in 'Sweet and Low Down' where she didn't speak at all, and I loved it so much because she got to do so much work just by expressing herself in her body and her face. With expressions, it wasn't necessary to speak. I find that appealing.

In theater, the primary tool for me was voice. On-screen, it's the eyes.

My face moves, unlike some actors' do. I guess it's kind of a response to what's happening internally.

I'm good at observing people, physical stuff, which leant itself to acting.

One of the most difficult things I find as an actor is to laugh on cue. It is way harder than crying or other emotions. It's sometimes harder than yawning on cue.

I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.

There's always so much more that can be conveyed on screen visually in the expressions of people's faces, in their bodies, in their body language. And also with sound design, with music.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

It's fun being able to suit up and go and kick butt and not have to worry about memorizing dialogue. It's a whole different way of acting because you're not depending on the words at all, you're really depending on everything else that you have.

Well, what is acting but the study of human behavior? And that's so fascinating to me.

Just to get the actors to relax, listen to each other, and actually affect each other, there are a number of techniques you have to learn, and they don't all work on every actor.

In film, you're always using your tools, your body, your voice, your emotions, but onstage, you use them in a different way.

I like acting with no lines because all of a sudden you're able to express things without always worrying about the text. It's great to have a great text, but there's a lot of stuff you can't say in words, and I think there's something really nice about good physical moments.

Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own.

To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.

I watched season four of 'The Wire.' They have subtle performances that they do through their eyes. You could watch season four with the audio off and still understand what's happening through their eyes.