actors Quotes

A lot of actors, they know the camera's there, and if somebody moves around or makes noise or whatever then they get all distracted, but I pretty much lock in. You can't distract me too much.

Violence is used to portray what happens in a film. It only helps portray the actors and what they do. I think it is more about the story, when you have something to play off of.

God, I hate interviews with actors pouncing on. Who wants to know about their lives? I don't want to know about Al Pacino's life.

Most actors hate readthroughs - they're exposing themselves before they're ready to, and before they've bonded. But I love them because they give us all the first inkling of what the whole show is going to be like, how each part affects every other part, and we won't see that again until it's all edited together.

I think if actors don't think of themselves as funny in real life they think they can't do comedy.

There's nothing more boring than actors talking about acting.

Actors have bodyguards and entourages not because anybody wants to hurt them - who would want to hurt an actor? - but because they want to get recognized. God forbid someone doesn't recognize them.

Actors who are lovers in real life are often incapable if playing the part of lovers to an audience. It is equally true that sympathy between actors who are not lovers may create a temporary emotion that is perfectly sincere.

The actors feel very free. The actor, he doesn't need to think about where the camera is, he just has to focus on what he's doing and forget the camera. The camera is never in the perfect position, and I think this is what keeps this feeling of reality. The frame is not perfect.

I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.

What I love about the filmmakers that I mentioned [Danny Boyle,Leo Carax], is that it's visual but it's also, you see that the characters are the most important thing. The actors are the most important thing.

What's great about New York is that there are a lot of theater actors and actresses, who are trained actors, that they bring onto the show. They're so talented, in such a weird, quirky and ominous way. And it's great to be able to work with new faces, too.

I always wanted the actors to feel really free to leave the words behind if they weren't working, reword lines, if they felt like there was impulse they wanted to follow, if it was taking the scene out of order or adding something, that you should always feel free to do that.

I think you have to be scared every morning that you go out to shoot, or you lose your edge. With actors, there has to be that adrenaline and you have to keep challenging yourself, and I certainly challenge myself, as a director.

As actors, we need a moment to take a breath and have a moment of slowness.

I'm always excited to work with actors.

Actors tend to get better with age. You start cutting away the useless stuff and achieving a point of effortlessness and simplicity, which is all you want to do, with any art at all.

Actors are their own worst enemies. They quite often will get in their own way, and I have to be encouraged, endlessly, not to get in my own way.

If you're a great documentary filmmaker, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a great narrative filmmaker. There are fantastic documentary filmmakers that can't direct actors. You don't have to do that in a documentary, if it's a real documentary.

Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with.

The reason why most of actors got into acting was so that we could become other people and have fun with being somebody else.

As actors, we're a little faster than other people, with breaking down the walls.

You see the assets of your actors and you see their strengths and you try to play into them. It's like I feel part of my job is as a coach. I'm putting a team on the field and you want to formulate how to make the best game out of these players.

I really like to work with theater actors. Theater actors tend to do lots of independent movies, and those are the actors that I like.

We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite. When you have worked as much as I have and have sought it out as often as I do, you get very clear that it will come at very, very odd, unexpected moments.

There are actors who just bring an enormous amount of empathy. They just have that\'it\' that makes you want to follow them and root for them.

My own personal process with movies is to develop the characters with the actors and, when I've done that properly, you can't imagine anyone else, but that actor, playing that part.

As actors, we have that in common that we go for slightly out-of-the-box or genre stuff. They're great when they work, but they don't always work. Genre stuff is really hard to pull off, as any fans of it know.

There's a lot of egos with actors. We certainly don't like to be directed by other actors, or anything like that.

It was really cool because you can tell that she directs in a way that she wants to be spoken to, as an actress. That's really nice, and you appreciate that. Dealing with the actors was more important to her than anything else, which was really nice.