Jim James Quotes

Any rehearsal process - I find, anyway - does have quite an effect on me, and I very much live in that world for the whole period of time that I'm involved with the production. But normally, afterwards with a little bit of space, I can come right back out of it again.

When I'm in the middle of making a movie, I have blinders on; it's all about just getting the movie out.

I start a picture and I finish it.

When I'm making a film, I'm obsessive about what I do, and I get totally into it. That's all I'm eating, breathing, living at that moment.

Whenever I am acting, it's everything, you know. If I'm researching a role, I'm completely consumed in that and, between action and cut, I live in this suspended time.

Divorce is never a pleasant experience. You look upon it as a failure. But I learned to be a different person once we broke up. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success.

You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration.

Each film I make changes me in some way. When I start the picture I'm one person and by the time I finish I'm another.

I look for roles that allow me to immerse in different worlds, immerse in worlds that are different from mine. Then, when you finish a film, you're a different person. I look for that. I look to be impacted, to be transformed, changed by my roles. That's why I do this.

I treat acting as my job. I say that, as I have found there is a beauty in separating yourself from the world and from acting.

I like to do really realistic paintings, which requires so much focus; like, if I have to go to the bathroom or change a song, I can't; I'm so in it.

When I am on a set and I am working, I am almost near-obsessive about it. I love the process.

I think I took eight or nine months to make 'Immunity.' I just focused on mainly that, and it felt amazing.

When I make a movie, I completely dive into it and I can't really take anything in at all, at that time.

I sort of have the belief that you work being your character out while you're working on it, or that's been my experience so far. I throw myself into it 100% and try to live in that world, and then when it's over, just sort of be able to leave it behind.

One is always changing. I don't want to write the same book and I couldn't, because I'm a different person.

Sometimes it's an external approach where one can learn the skills required, let's say, learn to play the trumpet and in that process other things happen. It's magical: through the process of practicing four hours a day you start focusing on emotion and when you pick up the trumpet it's filled with feeling.

I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.

When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself.

Sometimes I go outside after a long stretch of writing and I'm surprised it's not raining. Or that it's daylight. Or that it's not the middle of winter. I don't know if that level of immersion is normal, but it's now I do things. I like it. It works well for me.

Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.

I feel a terrible loss when I (eventually must) complete a work of fiction.

As soon as I'm finished with it, it feels like an impersonal project. Like, "Well, I did another book."

It's amazing to completely focus on something for four, five or six months, have it completely consume your life and be constantly thinking about somebody else's set of circumstances and how they would react to something. I find it fascinating. It's rewarding and on a professional and personal level.

After the house is finisht, leave it.