Immersion in Role Quotes

You get to know a character that you play on-stage in a pretty profound way over a length of time. I don't want to sound highfalutin and say you become the character, you just start bringing more and more of yourself to the part until the character and actor, it's hard to tell them apart. It's some weird amalgam. In film, because of the period of time, I don't know that you ever get that deep into it.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

I always wanted to be a character actor. I love watching movies where you don't recognize someone because they're so lost in the part.

As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.

You know, my point in being an actor is to get people to believe that this is not about me, but something else.

I think one of the things I enjoy about acting is the transformation, and part of that is certainly the physical transformation. If people are confused forever, wondering where they have seen me before, that feels like exactly where I want to live. It feels like something's working.

It's my privilege to work with an actor like Vikram who gets into the skin of the character he is playing, so much so that after the shoot it takes him quite some time to get back to his real self.

As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.

Even during the cuts. He was Rust Cohle during the whole day of shooting. It wasn't until the end of the day that he went back to Matthew 'Just Keep Livin' McConaughey.

You got to constantly be in character.

With acting, it's like becoming another person. I think that's neat, especially when you totally forget. If you totally forget, which I love to do, that's when it's magic.

It's interesting to play a role where you don't really have to preoccupy yourself with any need to convince yourself that you're not acting.

When an actor commits himself to a role as fully as Russell Crowe does in the grandiose and silly 'Gladiator,' you may ask yourself why and at the same time thank him for his absorption in the part.

I don't feel like you can fully find the true character until you're in his wardrobe, on set, and really getting into the scene. And that's when you really find out who your character is.

I'm ambitious for is to not get caught 'acting'. I want to really feel the role and not let people see the process, or to let them stand back and admire it, because I think that does finally get in the way.

Paul Giamatti is truly one of my biggest inspirations, and even more so now that I've gotten to work with him. Every single thing he does, he completely transforms into it. When I watch a film with Paul in it, I'm not like, 'Oh, there's Paul.' I'm completely into whatever character he's in, and I'm not thinking about him as an actor.

I know a lot of other actors that don't like to look at other references to their characters and things. But I like it. I always look at everything, I read all the books. I read Dieter's "Escape from Laos." I watched the documentary again and again and again. I recorded it just to listen to him a lot. I just don't suffer from feeling like I'm getting caught into an imitation. I just feel like I want to steal some good stuff if it's in there.