Obviously, any time you're closer in terms of what your knowledge is to a character, you can add something. But an actor's job is not to play only people he can identify with.
In the theatre, if you say 'Macbeth', all the actors will start looking very anxious. I'm so well-trained not to say it in the theatre that I can hardly say it in normal life.
To be an actress and act crazy is really fun for me, to be able to be acting like you'd never be able to act in your real life and scream and freak out. It's an interesting test for an actor.
Life was so easy before I became an actor. I could talk to anyone, and no one bothered. I keep thinking to myself, 'Should I not be myself,' but I won't do that.
I'm lucky to be married to someone who entirely gets what I do. She is totally sympathetic to the actor's life. Her own mother was an actress, so she sort of grew up with it.
I'm a character actress, plain and simple... Who can worry about a career? Have a life. Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don't work, and then they work again.
Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing.
The life of an action star is very short. I want to be an actor like Robert De Niro , like Dustin Hoffman or Clint Eastwood who in their 70s or 80s can still act.
I am a filmmaker fanatic. I have never been star-struck by an actor once in my entire life.
The theater I got to do informs every move I make as an actor and will for the rest of my life. I can't shake it if I wanted to, but I don't want to.
As actors we always say that once the person in a scene gets what they want, the scene is over. It's resolved. But life is never resolved - you're always in the process.
I didn't want to be a former child actor for the rest of my life, although in some ways I suppose I am. I am going to be that.
I'm one of the lucky actors in television. I don't make a lot of big waves, but there's constant activity, and that's the way I prefer to live my life.
I think I'm a better actress for having friends and interests outside the theatre. I wouldn't want to live my life surrounded by other actors all the time.
Acting can truly take a toll on your nerves. I mean, we have to be larger than life. Worse, I've seen actors acting off the sets, too.
Being an actor, the less people know about my personal life, the more open-minded they can be about each role I play.
I'll be working the rest of my life because I'm a character actor and don't have to worry about box office.
I've often wondered about people that come to the profession late in life. I've wanted to be an actor since the first grade. I watched a play being performed by the third grade class, and it was... magic.
I consider it probably one of the biggest honors to be in the Academy. There are only like 1300 actors in it, and as far as I know, you're a member for life. To this day, I'm wondering how lucky I was.
I love working fast. I don't relish the director who wants to do 25 to 30 takes, or the actors who insist on doing 25 or 30 takes.
Athletes and actors do really crazy things, and we do them under weird circumstances because we love what we do and because we take things in an extreme manner.
