Natural Performance Quotes

I just do my thing onstage - it's just what happens. No one, even if they're into the band, can know it's as natural and real as anything can be. I don't think about it.

When I'm on an adult set and I'm in a scene, I am myself. I'm not acting. I am playing to the camera, definitely, but I am myself.

Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.

I try to shoot the first rehearsal because people are more spontaneous. People in real life don't really know where they are going to be either positioning themselves or how they will be saying their words. When people goof during the first take, it usually looks realistic.

Movie acting is harder than doing a play. You have to be entertaining but completely natural, like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. They weren't doing anything. Do you have any idea how hard that is? That's how good they were. It's crazy hard to be convincing and real. It's the most subtle, hardest thing there is.

In the end, it's about the reality. You want something that's believable in the performances; you want something that's believable in the storytelling, in the writing. You just want to connect to something that you feel is real.

Acting isn't that hard, really. I mean, I think that people make a big deal about it, but you just kind of try to say your lines naturally.

Al Pacino never looks like he's being filmed.

The secret to acting is don't act. Be you, with add-ons.

I'm just an instinctive actress, I've never had a lesson in my life.

I just want to bring as much natural as I can. I'm not saying that people who take acting lessons are false. They're much better than I am, but it doesn't work for me.

I want people to do what they want to do because when they feel comfortable it seems to translate better on screen. It is when you put people in a straitjacket that it doesn't seem to translate very well at all. The individuals I work with are usually people I know.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.

Scorsese and De Niro taught me to bring out the natural side of myself. And they taught me to think of myself as the average guy. Sometimes the average guy belongs in a role more than your matinee idol-type of person. We have to have people we can relate to.

I never do anything for the camera. It's my job to pretend the camera's not there. I'm never moving for the camera.

If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.

It was quite strange, because it's quite different from singing, although it's quite natural because you're used to performing or acting on stage.

I don't really like 'acting' - I like things to feel as natural as possible.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

The key to acting is less acting and just reacting.

It helps so much being on location. It's like the difference between performing for the rectangle of the camera versus a world being created and then the camera finds things within that. There's a huge difference in that, because what it takes away is performance. You don't feel like performing. You're just kind of doing it. You're existing.

If I do a scene with an actor who doesn't have much experience, I say, 'I tell you what we're going to do: You just listen to me, and then you respond. We don't have to do any acting.' And that's good advice because you shouldn't see the acting.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.

I'm the sort of actor who doesn't really prep a lot - I don't do a lot of research for parts. I just go for it, and I usually pull through.

I enjoy playing real human beings after playing a lot of larger than life characters. I love playing true to life characters and that is what I intend to do for the majority of my career.