Immersion Technique Quotes

I am not that big a method actor.

I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of 'Bloody Mama.' When you're younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it - and you can achieve the same effect.

The way I work is I like to immerse myself in the world of the film and in the character's lives, and then from that, I get a lot of ideas of how the film could be made, how it could be told.

I am definitely of the method-acting school. Everything to me is about sound. I don't dress up in period costumes or anything like that. I'm very aural. When I'm working, I try to soak up the sounds of an era.

A lot of acting, as I grew up wanting to do, is kind of like magic... I'm not comparing myself to him in the least bit, but if you knew what Daniel Day-Lewis was doing every step of the way and what he was eating, I don't think when he popped up as Lincoln we would quite believe it.

We actors should be given the highest awards for performing in the middle of people. I can prepare in the most crowded of places, and I know how to take a journey into my mind and separate myself from the crowd. I can act anywhere.

I have specific playlists for different books and characters. So, I need to have those with me. It helps me get into the mindset of the book.

I'm a method writer. In order to write about the emotion, I have to experience it. I get physically tired and exhausted, devoting hours and hours and hours to it.

As far as 'Jane Pittman,' I don't know that I could verbalize, to this day, what I felt once I got into that role. I did a tremendous amount of research. I need to feel as though I am in the person's skin.

I don't theorize too much. I sort of let the experience sink in, and I have to discover what the character is by doing it, and having those thoughts that she's thinking.

One of the first things I do when I step onto a set is I scan the set and try to take in every detail, because what I'm trying to find are tools that I can use to incorporate myself into the space and tools that I can use to make the performance authentic and to build on the authenticity of that.

During the shooting of 'Manthan,' I lived in the hut, learnt to make cow dung cakes and milk a buffalo. I would carry the buckets and serve the milk to the unit to get the physicality of the character.

When I act, I don't even know there's a camera there, don't care.

The only way I can be there and really get into the character is if I'm her.

Oh my goodness me, Daniel Day-Lewis - huge, huge fan of his. I've always loved his philosophy on acting: he always talks about returning to a state of play.