In our western civilization we have the glorious example, the great standard of perfection and the teachings of the Christ to guide us. He acts for us as Mediator between our personality and our Soul.
I'm sure my children will be artists. I hope they will direct because it is much more interesting. Acting is great, and I love it, but it is very passive, and it depends on other people's desire, and you depend on others all the time.
The great thing about acting is that, until you're dead, you can do it. There are aspects to it that as time goes on you hope you get better at, and there are a lot of things that I'm excited to explore.
When women get great roles in life, they start to get great roles in films and TV. Look at Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright, and Mrs. Thatcher. Because those images are coming at us in life, they are reflected in acting.
Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.
When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.
I got into acting because my teachers kept nudging me into it. The power a teacher has to influence someone is so great. I can't think of a profession I have more respect for.
There is probably some great acting that goes on in movies from people who have never been on a stage, but if you are in for the long haul, you'd be missing an enormous part of what being an actor is if you're not part of theater.
I have friends who wear Star Wars costumes and act like the characters all day. I may not be that deep into it, but there's something great about loving what you love and not caring if it's unpopular.
Two young actresses I admire are Emma Stone and Emma Watson, because they are intelligent, talented actresses and have a great sense of humor. They have learned to balance what they love in life - acting, school and everything else.
The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists.
When I was brought up in Sweden, there was a great opportunity for young people to learn how to act in our municipal theaters with their small companies. You would be under contract for eight months and have the summer free to take other opportunitie...
I didn't even watch the soaps when I was in them because it's like a coal miner coming home and staring at the coal scuttle - I was never a great lover of watching myself act.
I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.
I think that kids need to grow up watching what I grew up watching - great entertainment; you know, Judy Garland and all these musicals that bring song and dance and acting all together in a polished way.
I don't want to do an action movie, because I've acted in them, and they're so boring to do, because they're so technical. The headache of that is daunting. But, if it were an action movie with really interesting characters, how great would that be?
In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts.
What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I'm writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer.
That is one of the reasons one enjoys acting. Now and again, you get scenes where you work with somebody really good and you have a good time trying to make it really work and really work well.
I don't think I was a good model. I think I was born to emote and act. I would walk down the ramp and smile and they used to say, 'Give us a blank look.' It was really difficult not to smile.
At 15 I had moved out of my parents' place, and my options were looking pretty narrow. But I had this acting thing and I just wanted to be able to keep going because it was really good. That was all I wanted.
