Melissa Leo Quotes

Politics and acting are very closely tied. The job is to convince.

You know I'm an actress, not just a funny lady.

In the end, I'm an actor. I'm paid for what I bring to the screen.

Well, I think any actor can probably identify with being a professional liar. You don't always look at yourself that way, but I know a lot of days I do.

I think of myself as an actor.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

Charm is a way of getting the answer 'Yes' without asking a clear question.

Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

If you're saying the same line 10 times and making it look like you just came up with it, that's acting.

I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.

I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press.

I need people - theatrics and schmoozing and storytelling are part of my talent.

I'm an actress, not a celebrity.

If you're not acting, you're not an actor.

I'm an actor. Actors are supposed to act.

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.

When people come up to me and say, 'Oh my God - you're that character,' I feel like replying, 'No, I'm just like you; it's just a job.'

Part of my job is to try and seduce people. It's what I get paid for, and if people get in the way of me doing my job I can be very difficult.

There's something safe about playing a character, but then it's like, 'Who am I underneath it all?'

There isn't a switch that I turn on. I'm an actor. This is what I do.

It's a strange thing that we're actors, and we're always playing a character, and then suddenly we're at a place like Cannes, and we're getting photographed as ourselves, and you're like, 'What do you do?'

You can't make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.

I've been very successful in business and I owe it all to politics.

Most great leaders are theatrical by nature.

It was difficult to contradict this artist—this seducer.