Actor's Anxiety Quotes

I have no idea whether I'm any good or not. Still waiting, like most actors, for somebody to find out one day that I can't do it.

Some mornings you wake up and think, gee I look handsome today. Other days I think, what am I doing in the movies? I wanna go back to Ireland and drive a forklift.

When you're an actor, seeing yourself for the first time, you spend all your time just watching yourself and hating yourself and picking your performance apart. You say, "I look horrible. I should quit."

I don't like anything I see of myself on screen. I might like one scene or a few shots, but mostly I feel bad and keep kicking myself.

It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.

Most actors hate watching their own films because all you can see is the glaring mistakes, your own tricks and ticks.

The fear of every actor is when is this life going to be snatched away from me? Which is the day or year that the audience is going to decide 'that's it.'

Remember I came to Albuquerque to do a hair and makeup test and wardrobe fitting; you guys were already shooting. It's tough when the movie's already started and you kind of show up. You're the new kid on the block. I walked onto the set and Tommy [Lee Jones] was about to do the scene. I just kind of walked up to him. I was shaking, but I just gave him this big hug and he just had nothing to say. He was like, 'Gotta go to work now.' I had a great time working with him."

[Kevin] Costner said, "You don't have to do that... this is a wide shot, so you can calm down."

Kevin Bacon and I recently worked on a move together, R.I.P.D. Just before we'd begin a scene, when all of us would feel the normal anxiety that actors feel be- fore they start to perform, Kevin would look at me and the other actors with a very serious expression on his face and say: "Remember, everything depends on this!" It would make us all laugh. On the one hand, it's not true of course, but on the other, everything does depend on this, on just this moment and our attitude toward this moment.

I think whenever you take over a role, you're just really hoping that people will embrace you.

The actor has the advantage - or the liability - of knowing, "It's going to be my face up there on the frickin' screen, so I better keep my wits about me. Nobody's going to care that I was bad because I was not happy. They're only going to know I'm bad."

In a play, you can adjust your performance to audience reaction, but in a film, it's like you're trapped in a bad dream watching yourself act, and you're in the audience.

Once, and only once, I walked on stage and my mind went utterly blank! I had no idea why I was there! My fellow actors had to rescue me. I was very young and new to the business, so I'm glad it didn't give me stage fright for the rest of my life!

I can guarantee this to you: every single actor has had a dream of walking on stage on press night and realising that they don't know their lines.

The only fear I have is that I will wake up one day and nobody will allow me to do films. This is a fear every actor has.

There are some things that as an actor scare you, and if you can capture that fear on screen, it will be interesting.

It is often difficult to watch yourself onscreen, especially 60-feet high. As an actor, it is an uncomfortable experience.

Acting is so difficult for me that, unless the work is of a certain stature in my mind, unless I reach the expectations I have of myself, I'm unhappy. Then it's a miserable existence. I'm putting a piece of myself out there. If it doesn't do anything, I feel so ashamed. I'm afraid I'll be the kind of actor who thought he would make a difference and didn't. Right now, though, I feel like I made a little bit of difference.

They use those monitors now, and sometimes you'll be doing a shot and then suddenly you see yourself on one of those monitors, and I always say turn the monitor round, I don't want to see myself on the monitor. I never see myself 'til the movie's finished.

When you're a comedic actor and you're used to just getting laughs, it's kind of scary to go serious, even for a second.

There were times at the start of it all when I would be standing, terrified, in front of the cameras and people I considered 'real' actors. I had no idea what was happening, what the guy with the clipboard did, or if people in the studio were looking at me because it was their job to look at me or because they thought I was making a mess of things.

I don't assume that I am going to be cast as a Glaswegian landlord.