Anne Parillaud Quotes

I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.

The last thing a director needs is an actress who feels an ownership towards a particular character.

Actors will say, 'My character wouldn't say that.' Who said it was your character?

As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.

I believe that as a writer and a director, you're only providing the skeleton of a character, and you're hiring actors to fill it out.

In my experience, it's usually up to the actor how a character is portrayed.

When I create a character, I do it with the directors, and I take their notes and try to have my notes meet in a common ground. I don't create characters myself, and I don't really think that's my job. I'm not a prep person at all - plus, I'm just a lazy procrastinator.

Directing myself definitely made me a better actor. And, you know, I think actors have the best track record when they turn to directing. Writers, too. I knew how to direct actors because I've been there and I know what I like.

As actors, sometimes we want our character to go somewhere different than it goes, but that's being an actor.

As an actor, you're never really in control of the product. I think the goal is to create what you want. And if you can get as close as you can get to the creation of something, it starts with development.

I think there's a tendency with actor/directors to imagine themselves playing every part and trying to get people to follow their rhythm, their tempo, their pace. I've learned now to just love being at the center of this creative swirl.

For me, an actor is a person who makes characters like a cobbler makes shoes.

I am a director's actress in general - I depend a lot on them.

I'm a director's actor and go by what they say.

I have realised I am a director's actor.

As an actor you have to deliver what the director wants.

As an actor, we can only do what the director wants. Only the director has a vision of the entire film.

Actors should never be important. Only directors should have power and place.

I've been aware of the work I do as an actor being directorial in feel.

You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job.

Always when I directed the play, I was always trying to cast people not who were necessarily like the characters, but people who I felt had the essential component that the character had, some kind of soul for it.

When I accept a role, I feel that as an artist I have to submit completely to the tutelage of my director. And while I expect to be heard and encouraged and honored, at the end of the day, man, it's the way the director wants it.

Acting's fine if the script's written by Paddy Chayefsky and Martin Scorsese directs it, but unless you have something like that, I don't really enjoy acting.

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.