Billy Crudup Quotes

They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I've never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general.

Just because you can leap off a drum kit doing a scissors kick while hitting a chord, people expect you to be an extrovert socially. But I'm not always comfortable with the idea of small talk at a party.

Once I had all the attention, all I had to do was deliver.

I know that I'm a decent actor, but it's another thing to be in a scene with Jon Hamm and hold your own.

I don't quite fit in in like a pure dramatic thing, but I still think of myself sometimes as sort of a dramatic actress.

Acting is always a challenge.

I've done a lot of stage in my life, but I never had to dominate a stage for three hours.

First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.

I mean, I do believe that when you walk on the stage, or onto the screen, that's your character - not you. So it's an interesting challenge, an interesting line to walk.

You'd better have something good to say if you've got a roomful of people who've paid to see you.

It's not that easy, but the moment the camera is switched on, I have to mould myself to breathe life into the characters I portray.

Not playing off of an audience is very challenging.

There's a lot of pressure being an actor and taking on challenges that people don't expect of you.

What's great about being an opener is that even when you lose, you win. There's no pressure. And no expectations. If you sell merch, you're killing it. But when you headline, you have to sell those tickets.

I think acting is the most difficult one among all the performing arts.

It's really exciting and also it makes me nervous, because I'm like, "Well, I figured out how to perform this episode, but what if I'm not as good at what they write for next episode?" But that's part of the challenge, and that's what, I hope, ultimately makes me a better actor.

I'm a theater actress and I thrive on working with other actors, and you can't be even a smidge bad, when you're acting with Charlie [Sheen]. He's just so natural, so present and so good that you have to step up to his level, or else.

Then the challenge is, once you left brain it and build it, then when you're on stage you have to know it so well that you can get lost in it. I don't want to be onstage looking like a robot, I want to be at the end of the day very emotional and what feels like someone being up there rather than reciting things. That's always the challenge, to analyze and then somehow lose yourself in something you absolutely know backwards and forwards. And nothing's going to surprise you, but you have to be surprised by it and let it surprise you.

Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.

You've got to be able to hold a lot of contradictory ideas in your mind without going nuts. I feel like to do my job right, when I walk out on stage I've got to feel like it's the most important thing in the world. Also I've got to feel like, well, it's only rock and roll. Somehow you've got to believe both of those things.

In theater, it's just you and the audience. It's less of a popularity contest. It's just you and the audience, and they're laughing or they're not laughing, that's the only gauge you really have. But with TV and movies and everything, it's like "Well, did you get a meeting at so-and-so?" and "So-and-so's really hot right now," which is all the stuff I'm probably still not used to.

Part of the joy I'm discovering in acting is the fact that it's uncomfortable to me, that it's challenging, and the possibilities of always being able to improve on something, of always being able to try something new, it's intriguing and exciting.

Some people are good at performing in front of people like that, but I'm uncomfortable at it. I think maybe that's the difference between acting and being a performer. I don't think I'm a natural performer.

I consider myself to be an entertainer, given that I'm most known as MGK "the rapper" I don't have a problem with the label, I just want the people to know that I am much more than that.

A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.