actors Quotes

I think I'm good with actors. I like directing actors. I also like to show up and just do an acting gig. Where I'm just a hired gun, I don't have to have an opinion on anything.I never got involved in all this stuff because I wanted to control stuff; I got involved in writing and producing because I wasn't getting interesting acting gigs. In a way I'm grateful that I didn't get interesting roles, because it made me pull my finger out and do some work.

It's our job as actors to make it look like it's not manufactured. If you have two actors who understand their characters - and therefore what they are trying to portray - then all they need to do is be the characters and there's a chemistry there.

Taking on an iconic character is difficult, sure, people associate different actors with a character that you're playing, but there's something in rehearsing and developing a new character.

I would not like to direct, I would be one of those terrible directors who can't help line reading the actors their lines, because I would just want to be doing their parts.

If young actors ask me things, I always tell them to get on set and watch how it's done. If you can, watch the people that you like, how they work.

I have a sixth sense for casting. I just have to see and talk to the actors. I never make tests. I like to work with crowds. I like to get the principals in a crowd. When they do, something else comes off, something special.

I've always felt that actors in my experience have a very good and accurate instinct about whether something feels right or not. They just have a sense because they have to literally do it.

The most interesting part of filming is what the actors do. That's the primary link between the story and the audience.

I'm in a very lucky position. You have to remember that 95 percent of all actors aren't working. I'm actually able to go to France and work. It's a situation I couldn't have dreamt up.

I see how people boss other actors around to try to get a scene favorable to them. I absolutely just never engage in doing that. If someone's going to do it to me, I just let them have it.

Actors always have things that they're not thrilled about on a show and have a hobby of bellyaching about those things.

A real explosion is not only much more fun to shoot, it also helps the actors and creates an energy on set and ultimately in the scene.

People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.

The actors have confidence in me to let me lead them to unexpected things.

I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.

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.

As you get older, you suffer fools less easily. That's why there's all those cranky character actors. I'm an exception. I'm a sweetheart.

My goal is to work. That's the goal of most actors or performers: to work and keep working, and do the best you can, and keep growing and changing, trying to improve your craft.

I feel like with actors wanting to direct, you really only have a shot or two. You can't just make a bunch of little independent movies, and then finally one gets noticed. You have to make a really good one right away.

Actors basically are the type of person that with three seconds left, we want the ball. Give us the shot to make it or miss it. We'll take the lumps if we miss it, but we want the chance to get the glory.

Most scripts are written to be green lit. They're not written to be acted. And a lot of writers with the greatest intention in the world don't write for actors. They don't understand the architecture of what an actor needs to get from point A to point B.

I love actors, regardless of where they are in their skill level. There's something terribly satisfying about working with someone who's really learning.

Actors do want to work with me and I'm very grateful for that, but you never know. I could write parts for them that they don't want to play and then all of the sudden they don't want to work with you that much.

Actors want to work with you but they want you to do their thing. Actors, whom I love with a blind partiality, sometimes they want to be soloists in the symphony, not a part of the orchestra.

I think actors always like to think they don't bring the character home, and then their family all laugh and tell you otherwise.

I think all actors want to change. When you do something many times, over and over, you want to do something fresh. But movie is still my business. A lot of action actors want change, but no studio wants to spend money on something that is not guaranteed; not proven. I think it is very difficult. It is hard to change.

Particularly, the actors, to have analyzed the script in great detail from the point of view of their specific character. So that they have a handle on exactly where the character is in the chronology of things. In that sense the actors become your best check on the logic of the piece, and the way in which it all fits together. They become essential collaborators. The main thing is you have to work with very smart actors.

I learned a lot about acting - watching not just myself but other actors and learning how to distinguish between two great takes. It's also about one's own taste in performance.

Some actors - you work with them once and don't even think about working with them again.

Actors can be very precious about their work and their scenes, but I think good actors have a strong understanding of narrative and are very often not as precious about that stuff. They just can't be because they understand what makes for a better film, and that it's the job of the actor to work toward that, and then if you want you can go to acting class or workshops. But making movies is not workshops.