Acting Demands Quotes

De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.

I think film and television actually is a lot harder. Acting onstage is physically more arduous, but to get to emotional truth within a scene, it's much tougher to do it on film.

If I do a film and have to get naked, that tends to dictate how often I go to the gym. Acting in 'Richard II' on stage was a huge physical workout, so I ended up more toned than I normally am.

I really am not a weakling. We like to do a lot of takes, so it ends up being pretty physically grueling.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

Physically, it is very demanding as an actor, and I don't want to put a lot of focus on that, but I think it is emotionally and mentally a lot more... It can completely twist you... We abandon ourselves for days and months, and by the end of it, we are twisted people which you make fun of.

I'm always in awe at how fast television is and how quickly you're called upon to be 100 percent invested in a character with the lines.

Most actors will tell you, when they've got emotional stuff that's hard to carry around for hours and hard to try to do justice too, it just beats your butt.

I have been presented with roles with demand not just a physical ability but mental disciplines as well. 'Memoirs of a Geisha' was not so much about physical exertion... it was much more graceful and contained than that.

You have to find it in the moment, and that's one of the challenges of being an actor - especially a film actor - is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There's no trick to it. You just have to do.

It's always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked.

If you want to be an actor today you have to come prepared with the entire package, which includes acting, dancing, action, PR skills, building your physique and all of it. Otherwise, nobody is going to touch you.

It isn't that easy to drop character, especially when you shoot for 12 to 16 hours a day for six months.

It's such a stressful environment, I find, being an actor, being put in the chair and 'Touch this, that, and the other,' it's too much for me. I find it hard to tolerate that sort of stuff. If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. You're wasting everyone's time.

Theater, because of the commitment, it has to be a great role and a great play to me. It takes a lot out of you.

I've had scenes where I had to cry, and by the time I've cried for the 20th time, I'm exhausted.

On certain days, it can get difficult, because acting is about being naked emotionally. There are days when you are feeling empty, but the scene demands you to go through a cathartic experience. That's why I like to know what my schedule for a particular film is beforehand.

Sometimes being an actor is kind of demanding in very different ways.

John Cassavetes wrote A Woman Under the Influence as a play. He said, "Hey, I wrote you a play." And I said, "Great, let's read it." I read it and I said, "John, I couldn't do this every night and twice on Wednesday and Saturday".

There are times when you do a play when you are living in the character over a two-and-a-half-hour period or longer, and you come to the end of the night, and you can feel like you were hit by a truck.

It has nothing to do with the emotional demands of a role; I've done comedies that are as draining to me as any drama.

After joining theatre, I started thinking that acting in films was not half as challenging as theatre.

When you play a lead role, you're in pretty much every scene. It's incredibly tiring. You really have to disappear into the film because you have no time to do anything else. You are either awake and playing the character, or you are trying to catch up on sleep.

Not all television scripts are created equal. And the process is ridiculous. They send you a script and want you in the next morning. That's not how acting works. You can do anything to me as an actor; I'm a very resilient guy. Just don't rush me. If you ask me to do it immediately with no time to prepare, I know you have contempt for actors.

I would say I am more concerned with the plays I'm going to do than the movies. I'm more comfortable in a play. In film, there's always a certain sense of control, of holding back. The stage is different ; there's more to act. There are more demands put on you, more experiences to go through.