Set Preparation Quotes

Sometimes I know a joke I'm going to yell out ahead of time, but most of the time it's stream of conscious. You never really know it until you've got everyone dressed up, the set is built, all the extras are here.

I'm up at the crack of dawn. If I'm filming, then I'll wake at 5 A.M. so that I can get on set and made up before the cameras start rolling.

I think the biggest lesson that I take from 'Avatar' on any set that I go to is just work ethic. Working with Jim Cameron, you're used to working very, very long days and you're very meticulous about details. He's very, very picky about little details, little character-isms and things.

I was so grateful to work on 'Bunheads.' We had so much material, and everything was so rapid-fire, and I developed - through theater too, I developed a really great work ethic. I think preparing for both of them is just that - you come to set ready to go, ready to play. You know your lines. You're ready to work.

When you're actor, you have no idea how much work goes into pre-production. We're just sitting in our trailers waiting for someone to knock on our door to go to the set.

My feeling is... when you show up to a movie set where there's, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in any explicit way, but it'll make you feel more prepared.

I think I approach everything as an actor first. I'd rather walk onto a set and just act and just worry about that.

Our hair and makeup team at 'This Is Us' had made me a mohawk to wear. I couldn't apply it correctly.

I don't miss working on camera as much as theatre. But I do love film and television because it's so immediate; you walk on to a set and the tables are dusty, and everything's as it should be.

I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget.

I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors.

They warned me, 'you're going to be doing the screen test with Daniel Radcliffe a week after the audition.' And then in the hair and make up department, he walked up behind and scared me. But you get used to him quickly because he tries to make you feel very welcome and at home.

In filming you're waiting. You're waiting for lights. You're waiting for people set things up. And when you're not waiting, you're repeating. And neither is conducive to spontaneity, you know. Comedy makes you very, very neurotic because you think, I - but did I nail it?

I generally enjoy the rehearsal process because that's where you can share your ideas, get your thoughts and feelings out and see whether or not they're going to land, whether or not people are going to agree with them, particularly the director. So you can sort out in that process any elements that need to be sorted out before you're on the set, and of course that saves time and it also makes everyone more comfortable working together.

It was lucky that Ralph [Fiennes] is someone who understands both film and theater and we were able to understand that scene so well before we took it to the set.