Taissa Farmiga Quotes

I want to be in a more natural state while doing acting.

On the 'Revenge' set, even if they're not showing my feet, I'll still wear my heels because it gets me in the feeling of Ashley Davenport.

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

I actually think acting is a form of self-hypnosis. You have to be hyper, hyper aware of what's going on around you. You have to know where the lens is, what the shot is, and where you're moving. And then you have to trick yourself into an emotional state where you believe this stuff is actually happening.

When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

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

Sometimes you can just step into the character, and you get all your feelings and emotions just from sympathizing with her and being her. But then, other times, you just have to resort back to anything that you've been through in your own life and try to play that.

You can't just tell actors, especially young ones, to 'act happy' and expect them to do it. They must in some essential way be happy.

I can't just say the words, do a lot of one-liners. I love each person I play; I have to be that person. I have to do him true.

It may not necessarily reflect my current frame of mind. Sometimes I have to put myself at the point in time of the voice that I'm trying to sing with.

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.

Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.

For me, it is important to pick up characters which I can relate to. Or I recall an incident in my life or tap into my innermost emotions and try to bring that reality on to the screen.

A lot of really good actors are able to go straight from life to their work. They don't treat it as something that's an unattainable, weird thing that they have to aspire to and reach for in a scene.

Great acting is all about being in the moment, being in the present tense.

I think people pick up on that. You use personal stuff and mix it all in - I definitely pull on that stuff in my acting.

When you're acting on TV, you want to keep it real.

Some people think that acting's about being somebody else and I don't. I think this is how I would be given the same circumstances. And I do it for my own enjoyment.

Very often, when you're playing people who love each other, or who hate each other, you manufacture those feelings. You have to do that a lot.

It's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself

Ah, nuts. I'm an actor. I just do what comes naturally.

When you act, it's better not to fake the emotion. It's better to find the emotion within yourself and your experiences, and see if you can bring that back to the surface, so that you can then literally hand it off to the character, and then let him run with it.

If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again. I don't worry whether the period is contemporary or three hundred years ago. Human beings are all alike. The main thing in acting is honesty, to feel the humanity and get to the essence of the character. You can't put anything into a character that you haven't got within you.