Collaborative Acting Quotes

When you're on set and you professionally listen to what the other actors have to say, then the emotion is naturally evoked.

You can do a whole scene in acting without ever checking in to what the other guy is saying - it's not going to come off great, but you can get through the scene - whereas in improv, that's gonna be impossible.

You cannot judge the performance of an actor in isolation. A performance becomes good because of so many factors, including the other actors.

You always absorb a lot from a great actor. What you want, as an actor, no matter where you are in your career, is a partner who's going to bring everything they have to the scene.

I've done a lot of ensemble work, and I like that.

I love to direct my daughter, and act with her, and we both want to work with Jane again.

The better the actor I am acting with, the better my performance gets.

I think the key that differentiates the good actors from the mediocre ones that are still trying to come up, is that the good ones know how to listen. It's like being in a jazz band. They know how to listen to what the other musicians are playing. And where to come in and where to sit out. That's my approach to being in an ensemble cast and working with any kind of actors in a scene.

When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.

I've done so many other projects where you're in a room with a reader and you're acting your lines out: 'We have to get out of here! Any minute the building will explode!' And then the reader says: "Yes...we have to get... out of here." So it's not easy to be in the moment in that kind of situation. Reading with the entire cast in the room for The Clone Wars makes the experience much more organic and I love that.

I'm the girl that waits for the director to say, 'I like that,' or 'Can you boost it up?,' or 'Can you pull it down?' I'm that kind of actor. I started in theater, so that's the feedback that I'm accustomed to. It's the feedback that I really thrive off of.

I just love the process of working with other actors. It's like jamming with a musician, except it takes a little more effort to get to that place as an actor, because you have the cameras and lights and everything. But I love jamming with these people.

I really feel like indie films are where I learn to be a better actor, especially because they always give you a bit more freedom to collaborate.

We [me,Maggie Smith and Natasha Richardson ] rehearsed [Suddenly, Last Summer] like a play for a month, and then we shot it over the course of... I believe it was 10 days. All live, basically. Long, uninterrupted takes. And for me, a lot of it is me going head to head with Maggie Smith. And anybody who's ever had that opportunity never forgets it! It's a real career highlight, and it was everything I ever thought it would be, and more.

When you'e working with great actors, your performance also becomes better because you have such great energy in front of you.

I think a lot of what you do depends on the other people in the cast. It doesn't only depend on you the actor, but it depends on a variety of things, what the other actors are like.

I always feel that I'm sort of co-directing with my fellow actors. And you can tell when something's going on that really interests them and they approve of. And then you can sort of tell when there's not.

Nothing else is as fulfilling as playing a part in which you are able to have a significant say in the creative process all the way through. How many actors get to do that? It's extremely rare.

If you've got 15 actors on stage who are all trying to shine a light on themselves, they are all trying to outshine each other. Whereas if you have 14 of those actors trying to shine a light on one person, and each of them is trying to make the other look good, you have a much more interesting process.

Acting with someone else, I can't tell how good they are because if I'm doing my job right, I'm just fully invested in everything that person's saying.

If you're working with someone who you get on with and you're supposed to hate them on the screen, then you get this playful challenge thing where you're trying to one-up each other and that's really interesting. Sometimes it can become like tennis. The harder you hit the ball back, then the harder the hit it back to you.

I only worked on Men of Honor for three weeks, but I walked away with so much. Because Bob is the kind of actor who gives you the opportunity to really go there. And we really had to go there. I mean, we were both playing drunks.

Actors are always looking for the eyes of the other actors because you need help and you need connection.

There's only so much you can do until you get on set and see the aesthetics of what you're dealing with. Then you see what the other players are giving to you. It's all about the transfer of energy between different actors.

In this type of cinema, whether working with actors or non-actors, as much as you do direct them, if you allow yourself to be directed by them, then the end result will be much more pleasing. The real and individual strengths of the actors is allowed to be expressed and is something that does affect the audience very deeply.