Lindsay Mendez Quotes

There was a time during 'Gone Girl' that I'd come home, and I'd say, 'I get to be every part of being a woman in this role.' For me, I feel it much more as a springboard for the work I'm going to take on thereafter.

I don't think I had a script on 'King Kong.' But usually you read a script and then you go and audition for it. It's rare when there's no script. I sort of like the latter better, because I'm more successful at it.

You can't really judge characters, because that's when it gets really hard to play them.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

There is always pressure playing a real living person and even pressure developing a character from scratch.

With film, it's all about the actor being able to feel the things that the character's feeling. It must do some strange things to your mind. Music I find much easier because you're being honest about where you are as a person.

If there's ever going to be a challenge for an actor, it's that character who's often evolving - which is not often the case in television.

I'm still fighting really hard to get any role I get. If it's comedy, I go for the laughs. And if it's drama, I try to tell the truth, and try to play the real stakes of whatever scenario the character's in.

I lost 30 pounds to play my character in 'The Mexican', but people don't take to skinny mafia men, and I don't feel right when I'm thin.

My thing about looking good is that it should be the character. If I'm playing a character who's concerned about his body - an athlete, say - I'll get in shape. If I'm playing a character who doesn't or wouldn't, I don't. I almost never get in shape for a movie, even though I know it would be a good career move.

The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.

I love playing really strung out characters, and characters that are really pushed to their limits and losing their mind.

I love playing 'Madame Vastra.' Although I do suffer, spending three-and-a-half hours in make-up every morning to have her lizard skin put on. I was so excited the first day when we did the make-up test, but after six hours, I was like, 'Can we finish now?'

You have to be completely in the character, and that's so hard to do. That's why, when they call, 'Cut!,' you often feel yourself shift. Unless you're Daniel Day Lewis, who stays in character all the time, there's a switch that happens.

Unless you look like Brad Pitt, it's really hard to have full control of your character.

My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

51st State was one that I loved doing because the character was so out there, and in a way I was sad to leave the character behind. I'm afraid I could never be that cool in real life!

It makes a huge difference in how you feel, the way your costume holds you. When you look at yourself in the mirror, it makes you feel a certain way. Actors like to talk a lot about working from the inside out, but there's a lot to be said also about working from the outside in. It can be extremely helpful.

I wouldn't put myself forward to do a film like 'Changeling' if I thought I couldn't pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

Sometimes I'm playing somebody that I may have a problem with. Your job as an actor is not to go only play things that make you look good.

When I got the audition for 'Big Little Lies,' I knew this project was going to be different than anything I'd ever done. That didn't change the way I approached the role.

Every character I approach, from 'Forrest Gump' all the way up to 'The Spoils Before Dying,' has a different set of requirements and always fascinates me.

As an actor, if you want to explore something new inside you, you need to do something different that you don't do in your regular life. You need to think in a different way. It is my duty to think like the character that I am given and believe in his mindset; only then I will be able to portray it.

'Andhadhun' is the most challenging film and character. For playing the role, first and foremost I had to learn how to play the piano and then how to emulate gestures of a blind pianist.

When I auditioned with Anthony Minghella (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency), I loved the audition process, although I hated him for it. Because he had me audition six times for that role. Maybe three hours each. He wanted to see how quickly I could vary.