On-Set Etiquette Quotes

I think it's my job as a young actor to watch adult actors and take tips on the way they work.

When it comes to the acting stuff, I like to show up for a couple days and kind of be outrageous and silly, and go back to my day job.

People have different expectations when you're younger - it's less about changing yourself into a character; they want a more natural thing. And they just want you to be able to turn up every day and carry on working. They have a horrible fear of 10- or 11-year-olds, that they're going to say 'I don't want to play today.'

I laugh a lot, especially between shots, and it's tough for me to control. There have been so many instances where my director had to request me to stop laughing and come into the mood of the scene.

Acting is a work in progress for me. I just try to keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open, especially with the people I've worked with.

I think what you learn, working on a film or TV set, is how to tune certain things out. You've got 60-100 people swirling around you, each of them with a very important job to do.

For a child actor, it's a matter of listening, reacting, and being able to put yourself in a new place without being scared.

Good films and good performances will help you go further in your career. You can't get too far by just choosing leading lady roles.

When we were doing 'Freaks and Geeks', I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn't on me. I thought I was helping the other actors by keeping them on their toes, but nobody appreciated it when I would trip them up. So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way.

I know there are some actors who won't switch their accents off when they're on set and like to be called by their character's names. That works for them, and that's great.

I remember the first film I did, the lead actor would, in between scenes, be reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, 'How can you do that?' But it's so exhausting, you can't be 'on' 12-14 hours a day.

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.

A lot of actors just do whatever they do, and wherever the camera is, it is. They don't pay much attention, but I always did. I was always very close to the camera crew. They were my best buddies, no matter what movie or show I was doing.

I'm a rational person, and I'm not a method actor. You don't need to call me by my character's name while I'm not shooting.

A film set is really delicate and people treat you very very well if you're an actor because they want you to be as comfortable as possible for you to do your work, but it really is just one in a team of many and usually 150 people.

Sometimes being an actor is kind of demanding in very different ways.

The first day of shooting I walk up to Christopher Walken, and I said, Should I call you Mr. Walken or Chris? He goes, 'Call me Flash.'

I don't want to be like the actor who rehearses everything in the bathroom, then comes to the set and carries on completely uninterrupted while the other actors tiptoe away.

If you play a role, you want to familiarize yourself with that person's world. If I were playing an airline pilot or a doctor, I'd probably want to hang out with a doctor or an airplane pilot for a while, ask some questions. You don't get to hang out the kings. They don't help consult on movies. So your resources are, by necessity, secondary.

It's hard enough to just be a good actor. When you're on set, there's everything going against you. There are walkie talkies going off, the camera is creaking and moving, there are boom mics, and you have to hit your mark and make sure you don't shadow the other person's face. It's a really technical process.

I'm always amazed at the way some actors' behaviour is truly disgusting. That's one thing that will never happen on one of my sets if I ever direct.

When you're working on something where there's usually one sex scene in the film, it all gets a little bit of a gray area and people get a bit uncomfortable and awkward. You just get through it. But, it became very clear on this that that can't happen. There can't be any gray areas on this because there are actors and actresses coming in for a day or a couple of days, as well as people who are there regularly.

I'm a good actor in that sense for directors because I always do what they say.

There are etiquette things that actors, new actors, need to know about. Because it only takes one mess-up on a set to get fired. Not being where you're supposed to be or saying something to the wrong person that you're not supposed to say, and those are like basic things that the actors need to know.

If an executive producer has written a certain line, and an actress says it, and it's not very funny, you don't dare go to them and say, 'I don't like this,' because it will make your life miserable.