Actor's Presence Quotes

The first time I met Harrison, I think, was at the very first read through of the script. As anyone would be, I was a bit nervous before meeting him. I mean, it's Han Solo, so it was quite crazy. But once you get to know him, he really is such an amazing person. He's such an amazing actor as well. As I said before, his presence really does get the best out of you as an actor.

I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.

Great actors can transform, but sometimes there's just this person who speaks right to the role. When they walk in the room, you know they're that character. That is something you can't teach an actor; that's something that's luck and chance.

When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event. Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate.

Just watching an actor in front you really provokes you in such a sudden, unexpected way. You can't ask for anything more from someone you're working with than that.

I meet Daniel Day-Lewis. He's just sitting in a chair on the set. Now, I had been told that Daniel Day-Lewis was kind of an intense person. And he's really not. He's really THE MOST INTENSE PERSON THAT HAS EVER EXISTED ON THE PLANET OF EARTH. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting in a chair, and I am terrified of him as if a jungle cat has wandered onto the set, like- WHOA! What do we do! Are we supposed to move around a lot or stay perfectly still?! What are the rules of Daniel Day-Lewis?!

For me, actors have to have a character, an aura, body language. They're not models. They used to call actors models. But I want them to participate in the film.

I've worked with a couple of these really cool, great actors like Ted Danson and Glenn Close. They all have their own presence when they walk into a room, and I was excited to see what Tom Selleck's 'space' was going to be like.

You can do 'Hamlet' while performing cartwheels... as long as the audience sees your eyes - you can make the performance real.

My motto is that the audience should notice the actors, not the clothes.

The script is a starting point, not a fixed highway. I must look through the camera to see if what I've written on the page is right or not. In the script, you describe imagined scenes, but it's all suspended in mid-air. Often, an actor viewed against a wall or a landscape, or seen through a window, is much more eloquent than the lines you've given him. So then you take out the lines. This happens often to me and I end up saying what I want with a movement or a gesture.

If you are visible in the whole film, but there is no depth in your role, then the role is not significant.

I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.