Emotional Preparation Quotes

I don't ever recall being nervous before performing because I've already stepped into the shoes and the clothes of the character.

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.

I don't get a chance to cry that often on film, so I was hoping that talent would come my way, that day. I cheated, I guess, when I just started looking at my technology device - my iPhone - to look at pictures of my kids, before I did the scene where I had to cry. That was a good trick that I found.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

I'm fascinated with actors, and I've never quite understood the process.

Maybe I'll put my iPod in two minutes before. But truly, I've listened to actors say that they loved to listen to music before a shot, and I really understand that now because it puts you in the mood and gives you energy.

I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves.

When you're acting, you do have to prepare yourself for doing that. You have to leave behind - or you try and leave behind - anything that's going on in your personal life.

As an actor, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never known what I was doing. I show up the first day, I'm scared, and I just hang out. It's like being in detention - you just wait for it to be over. Then gradually I start to figure out what's going on.

When I have to do an emotional scene, I sometimes feel drained right before doing it.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

Arm yourself, my heart: the thing that you must do is fearful, yet inevitable.

I imagined that it might be awkward to talk to your wife about her performance, so going into it I was a little nervous. But doing it was actually a wonderfully inspiring experience.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

I won't even think about acting in a role where I didn't do a back story for a character.

For me as an actor, I use a lot of music. Music is a huge part of developing and getting into a certain mindset.

I think that really what our training, what our culture, our religious institutions, our educational and cultural institutions should be about is preparing the heart for that journey outside of the cage of the ribs.

I empty myself out and fill myself with the character. I would play a devil worshipper, and I would fill myself up with whatever devil worshippers believe. Then, as myself, I empty that out and become Nelsan.

I do my best not to have any expectations when I go into a movie because it's not fair.

Sometimes when you have to go into something, unless you're gifted and can just turn it on and off like a jukebox, you find someplace where there's nothing going on to get yourself into whatever state your character is entering into.

The process of playing a character as dark as Omar Saeed Sheikh is disturbing. So you have to mentally also be in that psyche, that state of mind. So, it was not easy. I was trying to cultivate a lot of anger and hatred in me while portraying him, because that's what I read and heard about him.

I'm not the kind of actor that can go completely cold into an emotional scene. I have to transport myself emotionally by whatever means possible, and that basically means you carry the situation with you all week, all episode or all day beforehand.

I remember my first time in the Champions League. I was 18, and it was Arsenal against Milan at The Emirates. The night before, I remember I put my music on my iPod. I was lying in bed, and I listened to the Champions League music. That was my Champions League debut, my first time. It was beautiful.

As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.

I've never been a method actress; I've never been that person that wants to imagine horrible things happening in your own life in order to exploit them for your emotional being in the movie. I'm just not good at doing that.