The pressure is always stepping on stage with actors who are just so well-established. It's a scary thing. I haven't been around the block that many times, especially not on big projects. Dialogue makes things easier. When you start bouncing dialogue off of other actors, it becomes comfortable; it becomes conversational.
Well, I was coming off of being on 'Law & Order,' and I was a little worried that it might be the end of my career - I've never been one of those actors with a lot of confidence that the next good job will come along.
That period between finishing the film and opening night is agonising. That's part of why actors go from job to job - so they don't have to live with the anxiety in the interim.
Hopefully, I'm not stealing scenes from other actors, because then they won't want to work with me.
What annoys me about it is that your fate is always in somebody else's hands. It's always up to somebody else to decide whether or not they want you in their show and so the majority of actors have to play out a waiting game. The constant fear is that it could all end tomorrow.
I had very little confidence in myself as an actress.
How will I perform if I don't get good lines?
I think a lot of actors, sometimes what happens I think is that actors finish a movie and they go, 'Oh my god, I'm never going to work again,' even big huge actors, and so they'll take something thinking that something else will never come along.
I think even probably the people we look up to the most, and think are on the Mount Olympus of actors - they're still experiencing nervousness.
I have such respect for guest actors. They don't know all the characters as deeply as the regulars, and the cast isn't your family, so you have more at stake.
When you work as a cinematographer, the actors look to you for reassurance. When you're lighting them, they can never think you're making an adjustment because of the way they look. If they are nervous, it impacts their performance, which impacts the story.
What bothers me is our culture's obsession with nudity. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There's the worry about seeing one's body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on the Internet.
I still have the actor's disease. I always think I'll never get another job.
Very often when I go in to meet for movies or pilots, I'm put on videotape. I hate the notion that that tape is going to sit on a shelf and never get better.
I think that for the actors, the last thing that they want is a director that's not watching, a director that goes 'Okay, it sounded good to me,' and they were doing something else or preoccupied with something else because they were worried about the light changing.
I'm not in any rush to get anywhere. There's a pressure on actors to get somewhere before it's over. But everyone wants longevity, don't they? It's a career. Why be that flash-in-the-pan, taking every job out of worry it'll soon be over?
Every actor is always prepared for the worst when it comes to work.
I have been that actor who's watched peers and thought, 'God, they're doing well. I'll never get there.'
I may have given my best performance but what if the role gets edited?
It's cool to be nervous, and how the nerves come out sideways. That's why some actors scream their heads off, or it comes out in their hair.
I'm always like this with a new movie role. I always get super-defensive and make noises like a rooster, Maybe that's because I spent so much time as a chorus girl.
I'm an actor, I worry about everything.
As an actor, and as you get to a certain level... and it's pilot season and you read the trades, you could have a nervous breakdown. 'So-and-so's signed for a pilot. Why aren't I?'
I'm learning to cope and not deny my own success, but I still think it's not happening a lot. I get nervous, and I am capable of doing something to blow it on purpose. A lot of actors have that problem.
Hopefully I won't be 35 still playing a 16-year-old.
