Laura Dern Quotes

It's always a long process of trying to suppress the self-doubt on set when you're acting.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

I lack confidence as an actor.

With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.

I can't imagine anything more debilitating, anything more challenging, anything more thrilling than to get on a stage and do any kind of play. It is such a vulnerable place for any actor to be in.

I definitely think it exercises an interesting muscle, auditioning for bad parts and trying to figure out how to make it real. I don't know what I'm talking about now.

All I have to do is be me on stage. But acting, I have to be someone else, and walk how they would walk and blink how they would blink. I used to talk about it bad like, 'Aw man, that person made $10 million a movie?' But now I understand why they do. I get it now.

I auditioned for 'The Office,' and I don't know if it was a role I could do, but I liked the character. You do one take, and you're reading with a person who's just sitting in a chair and not really... you're not playing off someone, which is what I like to do. I like to play around and find the moment.

One of the hardest things to do in acting is to stop thinking about yourself and stop being self-conscious.

For me and for I'm sure any actor, each role is a different challenge to prepare for in a different way.

Frankly, acting doesn't scare me because I really enjoy it.

I'm sure acting is a deeply neurotic thing to do.

The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.

It's a hard thing to do, to be given a script, and know that you've got to turn up on the first day of the shoot - generally without having had any rehearsal - and present a character. It's really baffling; it's incredibly hard to know how to begin, to approach it, other than just thinking about it.

As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.

I have no interest in watching myself act.

For me, the audition is always the hardest part of the whole process. Once you get on set, once you're in costume, you're with the director, it's so much easier to get in the headspace.

It takes me some time to get into what I am doing - since I am not a trained actor, I don't have that skill. I have to think of what I am doing and how it comes through.

I don't think you can be a good actor and want to please, because so much about performing and acting is surprising people.

I can't say I'm confident in my abilities as an actor.

Believe it or not, I always found intimate scenes hard to do.

As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.

I am so used to being up on stage and talking to my fans that it's strange to be on stage and be someone else. I can't look at the audience during 'In the Heights' or I will start talking to them.

I did Shakespeare in college and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.'

As an actor, you're lucky if you get a month before a project starts. There are times when you get a day before a project starts. So to be able to really sit and inhabit that mind and the story is really beneficial, and it really helps for me to be able to then compartmentalize as we're shooting and detach and go somewhere else.