Actor's Skill Quotes

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.

Sometimes you're watching a great film actor, and if you stand 10 feet away from them, you're like, 'God, they're terrible. They're not doing anything.' And then you see the close-up, and it's so nuanced, and so much expression is happening. They were acting for that camera and for no one else.

Even Shakespeare gives you a scene off.

I was just the perfect person to play the Mini-Me character.

If you do well as an actor, a good director will pick up on it, and keep it in the film.

Acting is one of those things that anybody can do because no one can learn it, but only a few people can really do because it's nothing you can learn.

I love an actor who comes in, ready to work. It's like a good tennis player. They hit the ball where you don't expect it, and it's great.

I'm a big believer that an actor should be able to pick up any piece of material and act it, the way a good musician can.

I respond in the moment which is what makes me a good actor.

Gary Oldman is my TV hero. The incredible thing about Gary Oldman is his versatility.

If I had a child actor, I would wish for it to be in an Adam Sandler movie, because he just comes in and makes them so comfortable and is so brilliant with them and they all go home and they that they've got this special relationship.

Ninety percent of a good performance of an actor is based on the material. If you've got the material there, you can ride it.

I don't think playing a villain is my greatest talent.

Mine is an actor's voice, not a singer's voice, but the part was written for an actor (Richard Burton), not a singer.

It's in the eyes, mostly. Don't listen just to the other actor's lines. Look at - and listen to - their eyes. That's where the emotion comes through.

When you go into the realm of a double role, you have to take it to another level to make it believable.

I like to play a wide range of characters. The more they're unlike me, the better I like it.

I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it.

Everyone said how brilliant of Tom Conti to be in bed in 'Whose Life Is it Anyway?' and only have his head to act with. He should be so bloody lucky. I'm not for a moment disputing that Tom Conti is an absolutely brilliant actor. But he should be so lucky to be stuck upstage in the spotlight, with everyone focused on him.

Pauline Kael said that Rip Torn could get angrier faster than any other American actor: that he could go from zero to 10 in 1.8 seconds or something like that.

I think I had the good fortune to watch Sly the Artist [Sylvester Stallone]; to watch him in all arenas. As an actor, not many people get to see him turn that character on, they don't understand that he's playing a role.

My strength as an actor is in the theater - I know that about myself. Some actors get onstage and vanish, but I'm much better there than I am on screen.

Regardless of what level the actor's at, you always learn something. And you can learn something from bad actors as well, who I've also worked with in the past.

If I'm going to be honest with you, when I trained at school, I feel like I was training to be a chameleon. I want to be that versatile actor who can do anything - that's why you learn fifty different dialects, you do Shakespeare, you do commedia, you do it all so that if any job comes your way, you should be able to do it.