Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.
quote by Michael Gambon

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Related quotes
You know, I always got offered other stuff. Not the romantic leads, obviously. But very often it's a role that's underwritten, where the character has no personality at all. And they need a character actor who can fill it in.
quote by Harvey Fierstein

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The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts.
quote by Alla Nazimova

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An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays.
quote by Arthur Lowe

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I'm not that complicated as an actor. I have a formula in which I work, yeah. But not like Sean Penn does. Sean is one of the few actors I know who can work like that, actually becoming the character he is playing, and get consistent results. I don't believe you can ever be someone else. You manifest different levels of your own personality to come up with a character.
quote by Kiefer Sutherland

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A Leader In You
What is character?
What is personality?
Character versusw personality!
But the feedback is yours when your reputations precedes you,
For there is a leader in you! !
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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What's most interesting and most real to me in my work is to never make the role a complete character, because then you lose a part of the truth. I can't say that this person is just like this or like that. Because you can never do that with real people in real life, so if you try that on stage you lose the truth. Since I myself strive to be able to be a great many things, I also want my character to have that very same liberty. Eventually in that way it will add to a sort of completeness. But it is the story that is told that is the interesting thing and the situations the character is in. And as we humans always are shaped by a special situation or given circumstances, I can never ever say: Thus is my character.
quote by Lena Olin

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Whatshisname
An actor always plays a part.
He has no personality.
It is the essence of his art
an actor’s capability
To become anyone at all.
Whoever they’re supposed to be
at least until the curtains fall
Revert to being nobody.
Their whole life is a fantasy.
They don’t know who they really are.
They can cope with reality
but only so much: Insofar
as I can see, because they can
act like any other man.
12/07/2009
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg

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I lost 90 pounds and my blood pressure went down to a normal level and the salt in my urine disappeared. And that was when I had to make the transition from fat character actor to thin character actor.
quote by Ron Perlman

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I'm an actor and I've created a lasting and memorable character named Frasier, who is not me, but who most people think is. So when I have a chance to play something that's different, I embrace it because it's fun; also in this case, he's a memorable character.
quote by Kelsey Grammer

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The thing is, I want to play real characters and not all girls can be pretty. The thing is, you get these girls who say 'I'm a character actor' then you see them in a role and nothing has really changed but the outfit.
quote by Juliette Lewis

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I don't think you can discriminate against budgets, you know? I'm an actor, I guess, so I'm just trying to play as many characters as I can. If there's a character I think I can play, and they're going to let me do it, I'll do it whether it's $10 or $1 million or more.
quote by Ryan Gosling

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Every actor looks all his life for a part that will combine his talents with his personality... 'The Odd Couple' was mine. That was the plutonium I needed. It all started happening after that.
quote by Walter Matthau

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I became an actor to escape my own personality. Acting is the most therapeutic thing in the world. I think all the courage that I may lack personally, I have as an actor.
quote by George C. Scott

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I just think with the way I look and since I have a broad range I ended up becoming a character actor. But you start to really enjoy that, if you are successful. You get to charge out on almost every character. Doing one character for like seven years or whatever may get really boring.
quote by Tyler Labine

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I brought my personality and sense of wonder and I think they wrote as much of my personality as they could. I do not go around kicking butt and saving the universe all the time but they tried to capture me as best as they could in the character.
quote by Gil Gerard

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Behind the Scenes
The actor struts his little hour,
Between the limelight and the band;
The public feel the actor's power,
Yet nothing do they understand
Of all the touches here and there
That make or mar the actor's part,
They never see, beneath the glare,
The artist striving after art.
To them it seems a labour slight
Where nought of study intervenes;
You see it in another light
When once you've been behind the scenes.
For though the actor at his best
Is, like a poet, born not made,
He still must study with a zest
And practise hard to learn his trade.
So, whether on the actor's form
The stately robes of Hamlet sit,
Or as Macbeth he rave and storm,
Or plays burlesque to please the pit,
'Tis each and all a work of art,
That constant care and practice means --
The actor who creates a part
Has done his work behind the scenes.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson

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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.
quote by Kathleen Quinlan

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But really, for the most part - doing a prequel is great because you do have room to kind of free this character and how they got to where they are instead of being a slave to exactly what the previous actor did.
quote by Jennifer Lawrence

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It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.
I have my ethics and morals. I have my anchor point of what is right and wrong in real life, but I'm not afraid to entertain any and every aspect of personality in relationship to creating a character.
quote by Corin Nemec

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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