Danny Masterson Quotes

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn't want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground.

As an actor, you really want to respect and honor the script. You want to try to be in the moment and you also realize that you're one part of a bigger picture and when they call action, you have your dance.

I love working with actors, and it's all been based on my being trained in the theater.

So, I certainly subscribe to what Bette said about acting being very hard work.

Any director who's also acted understands the fact that every person has a different process and has to be approached differently.

I am a director's actress in general - I depend a lot on them.

Actors have their own processes, and if you want to be respectful of their process, you've got to communicate with them in the language of their process, and keeping that all straight is a little bit of a head-scratcher.

Every actor has a different language. Every actor has their strengths and their challenges, and I try to help them and support them and help them through their challenges as best I can.

One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

When you turn up for work, especially with looking down the barrel of a show, you're hoping the person you're acting opposite of is going to be on your kind of crazy wavelength.

I took theatre and stuff in college, then I took a bunch of different acting classes here in L.A. Sometimes when I have a hard audition, I'll call my acting coach and he'll come help me. I actually get more nervous in acting class than I do at an actual audition. It's actually a really great way to get over your nerves.

My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.

I don't like shows, I don't like to put on a show, I just really want to work intimately with my actors.

It's very rare you get a director who's that invested in the actors. So yeah, when 'Little Fish' came around, there wasn't much negotiation!

I want to discover more things about acting.

I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.

A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.

Every role sort of teaches you how to prepare for it.

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

Part of being an actor is the rhythm of the life of being an actor, and that involves coming together with a group of people, making something together that is intense and requires a lot of intimacy, and then walking away from it with the possibility that you will never see any of those people again.

Honestly, soaps are great training. You're doing 90-plus pages a day. It was my acting class, where I built my foundation for showing up and being professional.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's talk to actors. From what I have experienced working with so many different directors in so many different things, a lot of them don't really know how to talk to us.