Elizabeth Hand Quotes

With any character, I try to focus more on who the character is and how they got to be who they are.

I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to myself with time, not only in terms of my career choices, but the choices I make within one role or performance. I used to compose characters that were farther from me, but I find now that I like to craft a subtle composition, a subtle change in your essence.

The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.

We discover our character through decisions under pressure.

I was very, very shy when I was little. Acting lets you access all those different parts of yourself to make the character authentic.

Every character is a part of you and a part of the character that you are going to evolve into that you are not yet.

When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.

To explore different parts of yourself and different emotional lives... not to hide from who you are but to actually explore who you are.

One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes.

You'll always end up filling out a character. It might be with aspects of yourself.

I definitely have a lot of different layers inside of me.

For me, I start at the place that my characters are human. I start at the place that they are onions that are layered and meant to be peeled, just as we as human beings are.

A really fun part of getting to be an actor is exploring those parts of yourself that you wouldn't otherwise explore.

What I use when I'm acting comes from what I learn about myself.

I feel like within each of us is a million different people that we could reveal and that we can be sometimes... And for me, the process of acting isn't so much about finding the person outside of myself and mimicking them but, rather, releasing parts of myself and adding them to the character.

You relate to a character and you find that character within yourself. It's all parts of me. I don't leave characters behind. I just let them go.

I see a lot of possibilities in the age of my characters - between 18 and 21. You have a window of opportunity when you leave your childhood behind and have this chance to become what you always wanted to be. For me, that was a time when I could have gone many different ways. I was in flux and deciding what kind of person I would become. There's something interesting about the vision of what that will be and the reality of making that happen, and how you really are what you are. Unless you're "in character," it's impossible to get around that.

The most important task of your life is not what you do, but who you become.

Character is not the enemy of self-expression and personal freedom, it is their necessary precondition.

The real essence of art turned out to be not something high up and far off - it was right inside my ordinary daily self - If a musician wants to become a finer artist, he must first become a finer person.

What's more important that spiritual life? It seems to me it's the bedrock of everything essential about being human.

Our life evokes our character and you find out more about yourself as you go on.

It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.

Adversity builds character and character takes you places money can't.

You're always trying to look for material that is as challenging as possible, so that's why I like stuff where the characters go through the most difficult times they've ever had in their life. It makes me push myself further and learn more about myself.