Realistic Performance Quotes

Theater is such a different ballgame than film. And that's really why I stayed in film, because I really love the reality of connecting with your own feelings, and really putting that across in a realistic way. In film, the smallest muscular movements in your face, that are produced just by sheer feelings, you're not controlling them in anyway, can be seen by people in the audience because your face is sometimes, frighteningly, 40 feet wide!

I've always wanted to do a role based on a real-life person.

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

Molly Shannon and I used to always talk about that we really felt strongly that we were comedic actors, that we weren't comedians. You just played things real and the comedy came out of the context.

I wanted to be as authentic as possible because, first of all, Jean Shrimpton is still alive. And, she's interesting enough to be played accurately. I didn't need to add things.

Real acting is realistic no matter what the medium.

Your duty as an actor is to try to make it as real as possible.

It's the demand in many ways of modern television drama - it's very low key and naturalistic, and, generally speaking, the characters that I've played have not been low key and naturalistic.

If I had cast someone else who didn't have that kind of timing, it would have been leaden and one note. But Ann [Morgan Guilbert] made her really human and really funny without being caricatured or over the top. She feels like a real person.

That's your job as the actor, to understand the human part of the character, to make it real.

The Method helps actors connect in a way that is deeper and more real. So they use themselves instead of playing an idea of the character. It's more emotionally true when it comes from them.

I don't have any special approach for playing dark characters. That's because I never looked at them as dark characters per se. For me, they were real people.

All action in theatre must have inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real.

What we're supposed to do as actors is be able to portray real human beings and emotions. And if you grow up in this bubble of showbiz and you only know people who make movies, you don't really have an understanding of the world outside.

When I first read the script, I realized that Katie would have to be played as a rather down-to-earth person.

It's more difficult playing a real-life person than a fictional character - you can go easy on yourself with a fictional character.

The axe is fifteen pounds. You have to make sure you don't hurt or hit someone. And hit the beats, because they have five cameras. It has to look real. That in itself becomes challenging because you have to learn it straight away.

It's interesting trying to make something as truthful as possible, but playing someone who is still alive is quite a weird thing.

With this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.

You can say to actors that you've got to be the character and really get into it, but you have to make it realistic by bringing an element of yourself into it.

You are always invested in a film, but there is always a different feeling you get when you are portraying a character that is based on real life and you are re-telling events that actually took place.

It's very hard to play the straight lead girl and still make her sparkly and fun and real.

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being.

I would like to do some serious drama. I really connect with emotional characters who have struggles and a lot of emotion and colors. I don't really want to do anything smiley and cheesy; it's not really my personality when I'm working.