Gabriel Byrne Quotes

I don't have a favorite genre. I love to work and live vicariously through every character. It's all about trying to bring the character to life and get the story across in a way that resonates with the audience. It's always interesting and challenging in a gratifying and unique way.

I believe singing should be like being an actor. People shouldn't have any problem buying an actor being in a comedy or a drama or a horror film. That should be the same way with music.

I put a lot of time and energy and thought behind what I do and the characters that I create, and I don't want to do anything peripheral that is going to make an audience see me up there on the screen rather than who I'm playing.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

The luxury of television is that you get more than one shot at who you think the guy is that you're playing.

I enjoy all kinds of performances and take each role differently. I keep the audiences in mind.

It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

As an actor, what you dream of is being able to portray people that people empathize with and understand and really feel for.

I don't care what anybody says. Stick to the spirit of the play and you're doing it right. It's about embracing the spirit of the text instead of noodling some idea about things.

Great actors are people who just meld into the part without calling attention to the fact that they are so-and-so doing this part. They may never become huge stars, but will always, in memory, stay respected actors.

When you see a singer on stage who is 100% committed to the personality, character and temperament of the role being sung, it's truly awesome and very powerful.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

Creating emotion was what my career was all about. I wanted people to laugh at me; I wanted people to cry with me. I wanted people to feel good or to think about something when they watched me. I think that's why, even not being an Olympic champion, I have such a huge following around the world.

Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very impressive, he's not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way.

It's a fine line. If you withhold too much, you come across as wooden - as I've often been described in some movies. Fair enough. I believe that the best performances are the ones that an audience has to search for.

Whether it's a very dramatic part or a comical role, I feel I need to create the same thing: a full-fledged, three-dimensional character that the audience can identify with.

A lot of actors like saying, 'Don't judge a character; you might fall in love with him!' Not me.

Most actors will tell you this - I don't really know how to connect, empathize with, or make worthy of any revelation a character that doesn't have love in there somewhere, that doesn't have an idealism or an empathy in there somewhere.

It is impossible to give a performance that makes you unaware of the fact that you're watching an actor and be really involved in all aspects of filmmaking.

As an actor, it's important to feel for the character, as you will be watched by audience, and when you start feeling your character, you share a sense of happiness and achievement.

Actors that don't look like they're acting and stories that are told well inspire me.

I can't bear it when young actors do too much finger-wagging. It spoils the audience's concentration.

The fundamental job of the actor is to tell about the human condition, to be a voice for the truest ideas and deepest emotions.