Character Acting Quotes

I was very, very shy when I was little. Acting lets you access all those different parts of yourself to make the character authentic. ~ Rose Byrne

A book is maybe about 350 pages, and the prose allows for readers to get a glimpse into the internal lives of the characters. A screenplay is 120 pages, and it's all dialogue and action. The pacing of films is different, the structure is often different, and the internal lives of the characters must come across through the acting. Movies are just a different experience than reading - so it just depends on what an individual prefers. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I don't cry. Well, you know, I think coming from an acting background that's really helped me because I more than anyone know that an actor creates a character. ~ Joanna Kerns

Acting is make-believe. I never believe I'm the character; I want you to believe. ~ Kirk Douglas

The best thing about acting is when you're playing a scene and you actually become your character and lose yourself in that moment. That's when you know you've been succeeded at what you've worked very hard to accomplish in your profession. Those are the truly thrilling moments. ~ Meryl Streep

Also, in my acting, I feel very much like a storyteller, exploring the flaws of the characters that I interpret. I look for the imperfections, and I love a character that is just so flawed. ~ Danny Huston

I broke into acting doing Latino roles. I played a Latino casanova in 'The Winner' and a Latino character on 'Hannah Montana.' ~ Michael Steger

When you have a book as material as it is, it's a lot easier to create a character because you have so many resources to draw upon when acting. ~ Asa Butterfield

When I was eight years old, I played a story game with my younger brother and sister to help them fall asleep. The 'word-story game' was where they would choose a word and I would create a story. Acting and directing are similar to this game, where I am given the words then I fill in the life of the characters. ~ Carson Grant

My dad is a much more flamboyant character than I am. I think that's why I couldn't see myself going into straight acting. I always just felt daft. ~ Nina Conti

I think I've grown up in an era where character acting on film has become less desirable for the producers and directors and therefore the audience. They have got used to the people that those actors really are. ~ David Suchet

I've been in the studio experimenting on making a CD of my own. I'm trying out different producers, styles, sounds. With music, as opposed to acting, you are not playing a character. You are showing people who you are. I really want to have my spirit in it. ~ Emmy Rossum

Acting was definitely half of what I loved about storytelling and about theater. So, when I get a chance to do a cameo in a show or do a movie, it's a lot of fun and it's always great stepping outside of yourself and either playing a bizarro version of yourself or playing a character. ~ Josh Groban

I love acting, and ultimately all my characters are very different, and each character I love in a different way. ~ Catherine Mary Stewart

My whole background is character acting: weird costumes, fat suits, playing men, playing animals - I've never played anyone with whom there's any overlapping Venn diagram. ~ Allison Williams

When you have great acting partners, you hope that your reaction to them is propels you deeper into your own character. ~ Giancarlo Esposito

When you write a character and their dialogue, you can't help imagining how you would be acting if you were them. You kind of have to relate to all of them. It's the most personal thing I've ever done. ~ Tom Ford

We're not one thing, as human beings, so any character that is written uni-dimensional, that's just a shallow character with shallow writing and shallow acting. ~ Kari Matchett

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person. ~ Robin Williams

In Asia, I didn't feel like I was Chloe. I felt like I was acting like someone in Asia. I was acting like Chloe Wang, a pop star, that was like a character for me, if anything. ~ Chloe Bennet

I suppose the reason why I like acting is because I'm curious about human nature, and the less I know about a character on the page, instinctively, in a way, the better. ~ Rebecca Hall

I like the character roles. Somewhere back there I really came to the conclusion in my mind that the difference between acting and stardom was major. And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in. ~ Morgan Freeman

I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures. ~ Brian De Palma

There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there. ~ Edward Norton

Acting is not just impersonating your character. ~ Michelle Yeoh

Some of the newer folks in the industry, I'm not sure they are familiar with the term acting. They don't understand what it means to play a character rather than just be a personality. ~ Kathleen Quinlan

I see myself as a character actor, and I've always been drawn to playing characters that are different from myself because acting is escapism for me. I've never been that comfortable playing people that are like me. ~ Alessandro Nivola

You really have to be a character to serve it properly. Obviously, you're acting, but you have to have those things in yourself, whether it's the experience or the same qualities. ~ Greg Bryk

As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything. ~ Andy Serkis

I think acting has helped me come out of my shell because when I play a character, I can't be self-conscious. ~ Joan Cusack

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character. ~ Robert Duvall

The first step to a better audition is to give up character and use yourself. ~ Michael Shurtleff

There was a time when I was really going to give up acting
right after Foxfire. I was trying to find characters with a certain strength and things going on, but I was always disappointed. Wallace was the first thing I did where I felt their ideas were better than mine. ~ Angelina Jolie

That's what acting is all about - it's all about bringing truth from your own life, and putting it into your characters. If you have the advantage of using your own life in your work, that's always the way to go. ~ Michael Eklund

Good acting is about reacting, not tryingto express something, but reacting to a situation as the character.I don't like acting acting. ~ Jim Jarmusch

Years of live storytelling and character acting have helped me with building vivid locations and scenes. ~ David Crabb

I get some acting jobs. I like it other than the constant slipping in and out of character. ~ Andy Kindler

I would love to do more acting; I really would love to do it, particularly character acting. I'm a character type of actor; I love situations where I've got a bit of room to improvise on the character. ~ Sharlto Copley

I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory. ~ Eli Roth

That's what I love about acting, is playing different roles. I want to work for the character, and not make it work for me. ~ Fran Kranz

Whenever you're in any acting role you are mortgaging your own character. ~ Jack Dee

Though I thoroughly enjoyed playing crime branch officer Gautam Savant, it drained a lot out of me, too. It shook my faith in myself, as I explored my hidden side and wondered if I was just acting or using the character as an excuse to vent my mean side. ~ Randeep Hooda

I think when you're working with a character that another writer is acting as - for lack of a better word - custodian of, your obligation as a professional is to not do anything that violates that 'primary' take. ~ Greg Rucka

Acting has helped me detox in football. Getting lost in a character and a scene, it's awesome. ~ Thomas Jones

When I'm composing a scene for the first time, I try to imitate my character. The less critical distance the better - particularly when they're acting badly. ~ Jonathan Dee

Character acting is a much braver pursuit than a guy who runs around and intermittently clenches his jaw muscles. ~ Ryan Reynolds

My music is a very personal reflection of me, whereas, acting a role, that's a reflection of another character. ~ Riz Ahmed

Acting is not about knowing all this stuff; it's about character. ~ Ron Silver

I never studied acting, yet the first time I auditioned and did a cold reading, I surprised everyone for my honesty and limpidity. They told me I could play any role because I have no walls, I don't put anything between me and the character I have to play. ~ Jennifer Lawrence

Everything I've ever learned about acting - and I went to theater school - was about playing what the character wants and throwing yourself fully into going after what the character wants. ~ J. August Richards

Character actor' is a technical term denoting a clever stage performer who cannot act, and therefore makes an elaborate study of the disguises and stage tricks by which acting can be grotesquely simulated. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting. ~ Jim Jarmusch

I think everything you do, characters I always find, have their own voices and once you establish who that character is you find a different voice. I think it's just a question of establishing that character and the voice speaks through that character. ~ Guy Ritchie

I'm not good at Disney acting. I'm really not. I never was on that audition list, which I don't mind. I don't know. I look back, and I'm kind of wiping my forehead at the thought of, 'What if I had gone that route?' ~ Morgan Saylor

Frequently over the years, people have thought that they know me. Every character actor has this story, I'm sure. It goes like this: 'Um, do you play soccer?' 'Did you go to such and such church?' 'I knew you when you were with so and so ... ' Then I go, 'Well, sorry ... ' and then they say, 'Wait a minute. Are you an actor?' ~ Beth Grant

From her character in the HBO miniseries: The art of politics is the art of applying the seat of the britches to the seat of the chair. ~ Abigail Adams

People often argue about this. Obviously one of the skills in performance is acting, and you can't expect every Romeo to really be in love with their Juliet! ~ Deborah Bull

I stare out the window and reflect on the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one's imagination and one's goals and ambitions to create a character or a life worth saving. ~ Miriam Toews

I was more interested in playing sports than acting. I didn't take acting too seriously until the end of my junior year. ~ Ving Rhames

I guess I've just gotten to the point where I don't want to be bored by the characters that I play, and I don't want to feel like I'm having to make something more interesting or I'm having to force something that's not really there on the page. ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I can overlook the lie; what's harder to ignore is the grotesque way it has marred your character. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

To enjoy a good reputation, give publicly, and steal privately. ~ Josh Billings

I used to joke that if acting didn't work out, poetry was my commonsense fallback. ~ Merritt Wever

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ~ Mark Twain

Perhaps I lost sight of my dreams when I became an adult and resigned myself to acting the way adults were supposed to act. ~ Robin S. Sharma

I wanted to be as comfortable in that environment as she was. I moved around those areas in character. ~ Debbie Reynolds

Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext. ~ Gary Oldman

Acting is constricted because you have the lines. But I improvise with it and what I learn on the set. I improvise rhythms and just changes. ~ Anthony Hopkins

The beauty of Delicate Arch explains nothing, for each thing in it's way, when true to it's own character, is equally beautiful. If Delicate Arch has any significance it lies, I will venture, in the power of the odd and unexpected to startle the senses and surprise the mind out of their ruts of habit, to compel us into a reawakened awareness of the wonderful-that which is full of wonder. ~ Edward Abbey

Acting's fun, but life's more important. ~ Margot Kidder

Casting is so important in horror. It's so important to have strong actors to tell a story because, if you don't believe in the character, how can you be scared for them? ~ Alexandre Aja

While the style of the critique may vary with the character of the critic, overly polite criticism benefits neither the proponents of new ideas nor the scientific enterprise. ~ Carl Sagan

Geeks like to make things. Indeed, the drive to create is an intrinsic geeky quality (right up there with loving genre fiction and drinking too much Mountain Dew). And while many geeks may not think of themselves as creative in an artistic sense, most geeky pursuits--from rolling up a new D&D character to assembling the LEGO Star Wars Death Star kit (you know, the one with all the cool minifigures)--are acts of creation. ~ Ken Denmead

I always run the stories by Capcom. They read the scripts and give their comments. I would never want to kill a character that they really want to use in the next game. ~ Paul W. S. Anderson

OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS. [37-*] James C. Adams, or "Grizzly Adams," as he was generally termed, from the fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character. For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of "pluck." In 1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Sampson" - now in the American Museum - wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion, from the Pacific. ~ P.T. Barnum

I like Edward G. Robinson - he started as a character actor and became a lead, which is probably why I like him. ~ William Sanderson

When we think of fear, we think of a 'fear of' something. Far more daunting is the challenge of how to conduct ourselves in the dailiness of love and work when anxiety is high and shame kicks in. This is the human condition. We need not let anxiety and shame silence our authentic voices, close our hearts to the different voices of others or stop us from acting with clarify compassion and courage. In today's world, no challenge is more important than that. ~ Harriet Lerner

Among the white scouts were numbered some of the most noted of their class. The most prominent man among them was "Wild Bill".

Wild bill was a strange character, just the one which a novelist might gloat over.

Whether on foot or on horseback, he was one of the most perfect types of physical manhood I ever saw. Of his courage there could be no question; it had been brought to the test on too many occasions to admit a doubt.

His skill in the use of the rifle and pistol was unerring; while his deportment was exactly the opposite of what might be expected from a man of his surroundings. It was entirely free of bluster or bravado.

He seldom spoke of himself unless requested to do so. His conversation, strange to say, never bordered either on the vulgar or blasphemous.

His influence among the frontiersmen was unbounded, his word was law; and many are the personal quarrels and disturbances which he has checked among his comrades by his simple announcement that "this has gone far enough" if need be followed by the ominous warning that when persisted in or renewed the quarreler "must settle it with me".

Wild Bill is anything but a quarrelsome man; yet no one but himself can enumerate the many conflicts in which he has been engaged, and which have almost invariably resulted in the death of his adversary.

I have personal knowledge of at least half a dozen men whom he has at various times killed, one of th ~ George Armstrong Custer

True faith takes its character and quality from its object. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others! ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy-the form of state suited to capitalism-and to the inevitable and 'natural' character of the most monstrous inequalities. ~ Alain Badiou

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public. ~ Joan Didion

What is more important is finding the soul of the character, and making sure it fits well into this story. And that it be dramatic and interesting and captivating, because these people weren't entertainers, you know. ~ Mary Stuart Masterson

Intelligence rarely trumps human nature. ~ Travis Luedke

When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV. ~ Carrie Preston

This cultural, technological, and meritocratic environment hasn't made us a race of depraved barbarians. But it has made us less morally articulate. Many of us have instincts about right and wrong, about how goodness and character are built, but everything is fuzzy. Many of us have no clear idea how to build character, no rigorous way to think about such things. We are clear about external, professional things but unclear about internal, moral ones. What the Victorians were to sex, we are to morality: everything is covered in euphemism. ~ David Brooks

Unmasking the intentions of a Satanic character: He cannot be both counselor and tyrant. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien