Actors Character Quotes

#1. When you consider that you're a character that doesn't speak, but you've still got to react to the other actors, you've got to make a noise of some kind.

Peter Mayhew

#2. I would love to play an unexpected character. Really raw and simple and not a cliche - something rugged. People like to put actors in boxes.

Eva Green

#3. The cinematography is as much involved with the physicality of the scene, so a lot of our shots are hand-held. I felt the cinematographer needed to be the fourth-character with the same drive as the actors

J. Robert Spencer

#4. Cable TV has become where the best actors, writers and directors have gone to work because they are allowed to do character-driven stories.

Kevin Spacey

#5. But some actors I have met possess an intelligence that I can only dream of. It's about character, it's about behavior. They understand things about people that I simply don't see.

Ron Silver

#6. You couldn't hope to make a drama and have people rewriting on the day and having the actors making suggestions, "Wouldn't it be funny if my character did this?" "No. You're the actor. I'll tell you what to do."

Declan Lowney

#7. It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting 'inside' a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first.

Charlton Heston

#8. My instinct is to keep people guessing. I think as an actor your greatest strength is your versatility, I suppose. The blanker the canvas, the easier it is to project the illusion of a character onto it. I think there are many actors who do that very successfully.

Tom Hiddleston

#9. I have always wanted to do a book about actors because I think that the death of a character is a tremendously emotional experience.

Scott Cohen

#10. That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.

Matt Lauria

#11. As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what."

Javier Bardem

#12. In the writing phase, normally I try not to envisage any particular actors because I like to let the characters sort of reveal themselves in that process.

David Ayer

#13. With most British actors, it's amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.

Norman Jewison

#14. There's always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee's doing and to the characters, and there's such a deep knowledge when you've worked with the actors that he's worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film.

Jake Gyllenhaal

#15. I'm an actor. I'm trying to be the character and do what they're doing.

Sally Field

#16. If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it's because I put the character first.

Quentin Tarantino

#17. As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.

Billy Crystal

#18. You should always challenge yourself, as an actor, to find the connection between you and the character.

Michael Ealy

#19. As a character actor, I've learned that you have to watch yourself because nobody else is watching. Nobody is concerned with you.

James Cromwell

#20. Our job, as actors, is to just try to be as accurate and as mindful of what the audience is going through and receiving and processing. If it's a situation where the character should look a little bit out of control or do something stupid, it's your job to act into that, in a believable way.

Jason Bateman

#21. I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.

Nicole Kidman

#22. When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.

Michael Caine

#23. I don't want to restrict the life of a play to a particular production. The original actors might leave after the first six months, and I want the play to last 30 or 40 years. You write for the character, not the actor on the stage.

Neil Simon

#24. Character actors aren't a brand in the same way that high-profile leading men are.

Alfred Molina

#25. Unlike the people you see in Mathew Brady's photographs from the Civil War, the men and women of the Revolution seem more like characters in a costume pageant. And it's a pageant in which the performers are all handsome as stage actors, with uniforms and dress that are always costume perfect.

David McCullough

#26. Actors have an unusual perspective on clothing. You've really got to know the impact of what you're wearing on the character you're playing.

Kyle MacLachlan

#27. There's nothing worse - I don't like listening to actors talk about the process, especially when - I mean, for me I've played a lot of guys, dudes, boys in a sense and this was a challenge for me just to play that official character.

Scott Speedman

#28. Everybody always feels that they're right even if they're wrong and that's what a whole actor's career is built around rationalizing your way into whatever character you're playing.

Clint Eastwood

#29. I look at it like, I'm just a character actor. If I get cast as the stoned sidekick, fine. But I just want to act.

Steve Zahn

#30. You don't often get a chance to record with the other actors who are playing the characters, mainly due to the fact that you don't have to, the actors' schedules are all over the place, and it's difficult to get everyone in the same room.

Elijah Wood

#31. I'm not the writer who says, "You have to say it exactly as I wrote it," because you don't get good work. You want somebody who's going to bring something interesting to it and really create a character with you. You see that with certain actors.

Scott Frank

#32. I don't intend to be insensitive to the victims and their families but, at the same time, as an actor, it's our job, and we are obligated to portray the characters in the most realistic way possible.

Mark Wahlberg

#33. I think it's essential for writers to be involved in the recording process as things can often go wrong in this area. Voice actors are all too often presented with a wad of XL sheets, no proper character notes, context or reference and are just expected to perform.

Rhianna Pratchett

#34. It's a strange thing that we're actors, and we're always playing a character, and then suddenly we're at a place like Cannes, and we're getting photographed as ourselves, and you're like, 'What do you do?'

Rachel Brosnahan

#35. I have a ways to go as a novelist. But what's great is, well, I frankly enjoyed the solitude. And I enjoyed being able to tell characters what to say and do without negotiating with an actor.

Howard Gordon

#36. Character actors are becoming a thing of the past. They're just going by the wayside. They're just cutting through that caliber of acting.

Matthew Lillard

#37. Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

Bruce Campbell

#38. Yeah, I am a character actor.

Jim Gaffigan

#39. The actors I admire are character actors.

Chaske Spencer

#40. I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen.

Keenen Ivory Wayans

#41. When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

Mike Leigh

#42. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role. I love Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. They tend to be British, I guess. People who really disappear and transform, I really like that.

Fran Kranz

#43. Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.

Jessica Valenti

#44. I'm all about real drama, real performance, and real people, so my twist on this is: I'm creating a family, a brotherhood here. I'm creating a very real chemistry and I have this incredible ensemble of actors led by Will Smith, who are basically playing dimensional characters with lives and souls.

David Ayer

#45. You know, the truth is that us actors would all like to believe we re-invent the wheel, every time we play a character. But, we're human beings and our instruments are not violins, they are our bodies and our consciousness and our collective life experience.

John C. Reilly

#46. I think sometimes actors are drawn to good television because you have more time to sell it, you have more time to shape a character, and to tell a story, and that's really appealing.

Jamie Dornan

#47. I can't negotiate and collaborate with a character to create a distilled dramatic investigation of the raw material. I need to work with an actor. That stuff about actors who stay in character all the time is nonsense.

Mike Leigh

#48. It's almost a work-shopping process to create the characters with the actors.

Doug Liman

#49. I did what a lot of character actors do: I did it to get girls.

Kurt Fuller

#50. Character actors just pile up the credits because you work on a movie for, like, a few days. It's not like I'm the lead in everything I do - far from it. I'm not spending three or four months on a picture; I'm spending three or four weeks. Sometimes three or four days.

Steve Buscemi

#51. When I started doing television, I thought that I would change the way that I shot, the way that I blocked, and the technical side of it. You're not going to change your relationship with the actors or how you approach the characters. That wasn't any different.

Len Wiseman

#52. You don't write for actors. Actors come for characters you've made up.

William Monahan

#53. 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.

Doug Liman

#54. My favorite actors are people who I don't know anything about, and I can project any character onto them.

Matt Bomer

#55. You have the massive world that was created by Marvel, and then you have these very intimate actors around you. There was as much character work on this as there would be on a little independent film. So, I felt very fortunate in that sense.

Chris Hemsworth

#56. William Hartnell was one of the great unsung character actors of his time

David Bradley

#57. 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

#58. As an actor I can sort of smell a duff note, that isn't full of that much conviction. My worst thing with directors is when I know more than them about the character.

Matt Smith

#59. There's always down time when you're an actor, especially a character actor.

John Cariani

#60. I do feel fortunate in that I am probably allowed more often to be a character actor then most actors are allowed to be, and I don't take that lightly or superficially at all. I mean, I really do appreciate it.

John Travolta

#61. Some actors - myself included - like to know where your character's going: you like to know what the arc is for the character so that you can plan where you're going to give beats for this, that, and the other and give the audience what they want. But on 'Homeland,' you do the opposite.

Raza Jaffrey

#62. Trust your actors. That's why I work with the same actors time and time again. I encourage them to change the dialogue to achieve one thing: keep the characters honest.

Edward Burns

#63. I am not one of those actors who dwells on the histrionics and the subtext and future text of the character. I deal with the scenes that I'm doing at that specific time, because if I do that, they play in more of a real way.

John Barrowman

#64. I like flawed characters very much. A lot of times I get asked to do parts that are kind of small but key - three-scene roles that are three kick-ass scenes. Growing up, watching as many movies as I did, I was always into character actors like that.

Bobby Cannavale

#65. In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don't think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.

Wallace Shawn

#66. What's fun is watching actors of that calibre bring them to life. It's incredible. Christian Bale spent a day with the character he plays and after my year of being with him I couldn't have generated the same view of him. They have a different way of looking at people, it's fascinating to watch.

Michael Lewis

#67. Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

Denis Leary

#68. Wong Kar Wai is a very intense character, very personable, and I believe in general he does not like and he would not want his actors to show their true looks and their true personality on screen.

Andy Lau

#69. Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.

Sylvester Stallone

#70. If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do.

Leonardo DiCaprio

#71. The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

Abbas Kiarostami

#72. 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.

Kathryn Hahn

#73. It's weird, not to sound too actor but I think that any time you do a performance, you kind of take a little piece of that character, cause it's a part of you you're using.

Alia Shawkat

#74. I don't like making a film and having the actors in character too much in magazines and on the net and everything else. Because you want to keep something back.

Graham King

#75. It's true I have a hard time with the notion of creating a character. And I feel it's a limit. I'm always really impressed by actors who are able to construct a character, like Johnny Depp.

Louis Garrel

#76. When I shoot, I try to feel the body and the face and the weight of the actor, because the character until that moment is only in the pages of the script. And very often, I pull from the life of my actors. I'm always curious about what these characters and these actors are hiding about their lives.

Bernardo Bertolucci

#77. My job as a double was always to put [actors] at ease. My job was to make my character, or the actress that I was doubling, look as badass as possible by being there.

Zoe Bell

#78. For me, what makes great actors, always is how truthful they are to the character and the story and the emotion that they're trying to tell.

Billy Boyd

#79. Luckily, I have been offered the chance to play a South American, Hispanic and even a character from the Middle East in films. There are also a lot of TV series in the U.S. that have a strong presence of actors from India.

Madhur Mittal

#80. Great actors come with depth about how their character sees the world, and they completely defend it. They could defend it in a court of law, down to the reason the patient deserved this.

M. Night Shyamalan

#81. I like to see people put themselves into films, which is part of the reason why I love Woody Allen films so much-I believe his actors' work. I have a feeling that many actors in his films are similar to their characters, and I like that.

Dito Montiel

#82. My favorite character on Friends was Joey, because we're both actors. I always thought that was so cool.

Matt LeBlanc

#83. I would really love to direct one day. I think there are certain actors who love the character and the performance and that's all they want to be a part of.

Jake Gyllenhaal

#84. As an actor it's like, go with whatever excites you as an actor. What are you're going to invest yourself in as a character? What are you going to get into? Have a variety of characters to play.

Milo Ventimiglia

#85. I became an actor so I can show you characters and never have to show you me.

Margot Robbie

#86. People forget that actors are actors, who are looking to put on the clothes and the character, and then shed it just as easily.

Milo Ventimiglia

#87. As actors, we try to just do the character justice and try to make the writer's intentions come to life. If you do that to the best of your ability, that's really all you can do. All that other stuff, like a warm reception from fans and viewers, is just icing.

Tim Kang

#88. I was born a character actor. I was never really a leading man type.

Burgess Meredith

#89. Like an actor who transforms into the character that they're playing, you can transform into yourself.

Leeza Gibbons

#90. You don't really have to do the things that your character is doing. But us actors, we use something called sense memory. I've certainly been drunk before, and part of my job is to recall that without getting drunk.

Jeff Bridges

#91. William Hartnell was one of the finest character actors of our time, and as a fan, I want to make sure that I do him justice.

David Bradley

#92. As an actor, I've been drawn to those characters that are further away from who I may be.

Kurt Sutter

#93. For me as an actor, it's absolutely so thrilling to hear anybody talk about the character that I play.

Jessica Pare

#94. David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.

William Devane

#95. James Franco is a Method actor. I respect Method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we'd have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me.

Tyrese Gibson

#96. You know when you watch old movies, it's always the small parts you remember, the character actors who come in like a breath of fresh air.

Amy Sedaris

#97. It is so rare as an actor to be allowed the chance to revisit a role and to go back to a character that you already built, and lived inside, and understood. To take it further to another stage is a huge privilege.

Tom Hiddleston

#98. I'm a character actor - always have been, always will be - and historically, character actors don't come into their own until later in their professional and chronological lives.

Annie Potts

#99. I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know.

Katherine Waterston

#100. When I think of character actors, I think of Spencer Tracy; I think of Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall. When I was a young lad watching films, my eyes were on them - watching 'On the Waterfront,' my eyes are on Rod Steiger and Karl Malden, not on Brando.

Eddie Marsan