Actors in any capacity, artists of any stripe, are inspired by their curiosity, by their desire to explore all quarters of life, in light and in dark, and reflect what they find in their work. Artists instinctively want to reflect humanity, their own and each other's, in all its intermittent virtue and vitality, frailty and fallibility.
Acting takes a degree of mutual trust and respect.
The bit I love is I really love acting, really, and the circus of being a celebrity is something I'm sort of not interested in. I find it strange.
The weird thing about serious acting is I've always done impressions of people, all my life, and I did the thing called a balloon debate. The idea is there's a hot air balloon traveling across the Atlantic and it's going down and you have to give a speech as to why you should stay in the balloon. Six people are going to be chucked out and you want to stay.
I love the acting community at Cambridge. It's really quite committed and serious, since the days of Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen right through to Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.
With any role, you're extending yourself and acting out things that never happened to you.
All acting is an act of imagination. You are simply conjuring up imaginary circumstances in your mind and responding truthfully to them.
Everybody is great and the chemistry is different with everyone. That is the joy of acting - you really don't know how it is going to go until you turn up. It's like playing tennis, you can't plan for the match you are going to play until you are actually up against your opponent and what happens, happens. That is the joy of being on set.
Acting is a bit like tennis in that you can't really do it on your own.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: