Mark Consuelos Quotes

When I find those actors who are going to work that hard and collaborate that deeply, my role is to make sure there's a whole lot there for them to work with.

I'm really a director's actor. I rely heavily on a director.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

A lot of directors want to storyboard you, whereas the best way to get a performance out of an actor is a collaborative process where you listen to the actor's input.

Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.

I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor's process.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

As an actor, your first priority is the work - immersing yourself in the role, backstory, and bringing that to screen.

The rehearsal process is the biggest gift you can give to the director and to yourself as an actor because it allows you to shape the character and the scenes.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand, as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.

As an actor, you really want to respect and honor the script. You want to try to be in the moment and you also realize that you're one part of a bigger picture and when they call action, you have your dance.

Every role is challenging in its own way, but the most challenging roles are the ones that are badly written - then it's completely up to you to come up with something that is interesting to the story and myself as an actor.