John Lithgow Quotes

Every time you play a bad girl or guy in a movie, you really come from a place of pain.

It gives a different kind of high when, as an actor, I get to submit myself to the character I play.

I don't play many characters like myself. Oh I don't know what I am!

As an actor, I think you should always disappear a little. I act in order to lose myself.

You're playing a role, but you're still feeling it. You can walk away from it after 'Cut,' but if you're playing a sad or mixed-up person, it's hard to stay in that place for these longish period of times. You kind of have to check out.

Sometimes I can't get out of the character because the story is very intense.

I have these surreal moments where I'm like, 'I'm pregnant with Jake Gyllenhaal's baby' and 'I'm telling Robert Pattinson that he smells of sex.' But you're acting, so the focus is on the work.

With films, you completely immerse yourself in a character, get into who they are, live it and then release it.

It is therapeutic for me to act, to be able to slip into somebody else's skin, and know it's not you, but know that you bring a lot of yourself to it. At times in my life it's provided me with a lot of confusion. It's also provided me with a lot of discovery.

But today I felt different, today I forgot how long it takes to get into the skin of a character and I remembered it, because today I actually got into that skin and it felt so different.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

If you're playing your character and you're running into all these people who know who you are and treat you in a way that doesn't pertain at all to the character, it takes you out of it more, so when you're alone in a city where people don't know you, you can kind of pretend even more and get into the head space of where you need to be.

When you have to get into the character each morning, give it your voice, your face, it was torture.

For me, the acting part - and I have to say it makes me a little worried about my own psychological make-up - is that I just love to hide in other characters. I don't like to get up in front of people and talk as Kathy Baker. But as soon as you say 'action,' I'm lost in that character.

I got into acting for the chance to be many different people and many different characters. I love hiding in a role and doing the research. If there is an opportunity to change my body, I will change my body. I'll slip in and disguise myself in a role. That is a really big treat for me.

A strange thing happens to me that I'm sure happens to a lot of actors when the camera starts rolling. I'm not 'me' any more.

I don't prepare myself for any character unless it is really different.

I lived my 'Mom' character. I became Devaki.

The more I can be the character, the further I can get away from myself, the better.

I get some acting jobs. I like it other than the constant slipping in and out of character.

I'm the kind of person who if I was playing the role of someone who got shot, I'd probably want to get shot so I knew what it felt like.

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.

Sometimes, when you're acting, you are so in the moment that you don't even remember what just happened.

I like to get far away from myself when I'm acting.

I remember my first scene with Alan Rickman, and I was anxious because he is a slight 'method' actor; as soon as he is in his cloak, he walks and talks like Snape - it is quite terrifying. But I really wanted to talk to him because 'Robin Hood' was one of my favourite films.