the shadow of your shadow

I don’t always feel like a very articulate person, and with acting you’ve just got perfect words. I mean, not always, because often really good dialogue is about the miscommunication between two people. But as an actor you’ve been given the words, and you can immerse yourself in that perfect language and just let it wash over you, which is really quite nice.

You go in the room and suddenly these cameras are on. There’s a light on you. There’s one person in the room. It feels completely low stakes. You’ve gotta do something in your brain to suddenly turn it into a real person, breathing and thinking and having these thoughts and it’s not lines that you learned 30 minutes ago in the cab downtown. It’s words you’ve been waiting to speak because you really need to be heard. I don’t know what that thing is. It think it’s magic.

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an actor, a writer — I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

(via provincialsadness)

Films are subjective - what you like, what you don’t like. But the thing for me that is absolutely unifying is the idea that every time I go to the cinema and pay my money and sit down and watch a film go up on-screen, I want to feel that the people who made that film think it’s the best movie in the world, that they poured everything into it and they really love it. Whether or not I agree with what they’ve done, I want that effort there - I want that sincerity. And when you don’t feel it, that’s the only time I feel like I’m wasting my time at the movies.

(via panicmoon)

My confidence came to me very late in life. I felt distinctly unworthy because I had such an instant success. I was quite exposed, and I never went to drama school. I didn’t feel very good — and I’m pretty self-critical now. But I’ve started to get off my own back, because, you know, acting is just pretending, after all. In our society, there’s a lot made of acting, when ultimately the essential thing is you’re playing — you’re paid a lot of money just to play, and you’ve got to be responsible and take it seriously, but, at the same time, Jesus, it’s not a Nobel Prize endeavor. - Helena Bonham Carter

(Source: ohne-dich)

[Barbara Villiers] was just the most fascinating creature. I mean, she was called one of the finest women of her age. She was called the uncrowned queen. And she had this sort of hedonism that was just magnetic, I think.

I’m not intellectual enough for ideas to interest me and I’ll never be capable of original thought. But when I see truth and humanity on stage I understand how that changes and affects me and how it can really change my view of the world. … Also, I adore showing off!

(Source: themusicalgypsy)

“I’ve always found it quite simple to live in the moment. I don’t reflect a lot and I don’t worry about the future”.

“A strange thing happens to me that I’m sure happens to a lot of actors when the camera starts rolling. I’m not ‘me’ any more. I feel entirely protected by this character I’ve put so much work into.”