“I never tell anybody what I’m doing, even the people I’m working with. I think secrecy -- and this is why I don’t do television interviews, for instance, is a very important tool to the actor, both in the dynamic of playing a part and in the way it’s perceived.”
“The actor is his own instrument. So everything should be, if you’re functioning properly, unique – I don’t care what it is you’re doing – and that’s what I strive for.”
Jack Nicholson
“The actor is the most modern litterateur, in the sense that no matter what goes into a film, the product can only become objective through the actor’s individuality. You’re the person that’s going to do this gesture. You can take a scene that says, “I love you” and turn it into “I want to pick your peaches.” The actor is a writer in that sense.”
“In the area of screenplays the guy typed and that was that and he had his experience of writing but that’s not the product, that’s the blueprint. So since most of what is literature today for most people actually comes through cinema, in that sense an actor is a modern writer, because he actually gets it on, objectifies it, and makes final what the concepts are. It’s what I think of as the actor’s role. It’s as a kind of writer.”
“It’s also a business. That’s part of the craft, which is a commonly misunderstood thing. There’s no point in thinking that you’re an actor in Elizabethan England. You’re a 20th-century film actor. Understanding that is as liberating in a craft sense as knowing how to create an apple when there’s a peach there. A lot of people incorrectly view the business aspect; they constantly think it’s something to be avoided, circumvented. I think it’s something to be understood as deeply as you can, and to be used to the ultimate benefit of the project.”
“The business part of it is one of the crafts of acting. One of the most obvious ways this is true is you can look around and know, “Hey, I’ve got to get this by lunch,” or by 5 o’clock, and if you don’t know that, you might not get it – what you’re after. That’s the most superficial way of describing it. How fast can you get the film printed, developed. All those things that most people think have nothing to do with acting have everything to do with it.”
“I’ve always approached every job, every character, like I’ve never done one before. In fact, the anxiety that you feel is usually those couple of days just before shooting, when you wonder, “What is it that I actually do in my work?” And then, in the first 10 minutes that you start, it all comes—like riding a bicycle – it all comes rushing back to you. Approaching every job, every character, like I’ve never done one before is a gift. It’s also a craft. Secrecy is part of it. All the things that I can’t talk about, it’s all part of that craft. It is after all the most competitive occupation in the world.”
I really started learning a lot about film acting when I started editing the first picture I directed. Once you’re in an editing room, it’s tremendously informative, because there are just certain limitations. It’s as simple as this: If your takes match, the editor has the freedom to exercise his talent and cut the film any way he wants. If you don’t match, 95 percent of the time he’ll only cut what matches. So without knowing it you’ve dictated to him how he has to cut your performance. And you’ve dictated it in a negative way, against your own purposes. I’m sure that 80 percent, or maybe a higher number, of actors – forget about the public, but just working actors – don’t really understand this.”
“Also part of the state of the art. Look, if the object is to express yourself, to have some creative control over how things you want to say are expressed, there’s only one way to do that. That’s to get in a position of execution, where you have the power to get the projects together. If you don’t have that, everything else is theoretical. Everything else is what you think you might do, in some room, when you’re not actually doing it. That’s okay in painting, because you can paint at home. But I’m not a painter. I’m a 20th-century film actor. And in that context, the camera is paint, the financing is paint, the script is paint, the lights are paint, the makeup is paint – it’s all paint. And the painters are the actors and the director. Don’t misunderstand me; it’s not imperative that everybody who’s going to be a good actor knows this. But in real reality, my feeling is that you’re better off understanding it and attempting to move in some vital way to what you conceive to be your desires, than just kind of having an adversary, at-bay position of ignorance about it.”
“When I watch my own work, I’m always watching him; I’m never watching me. That separation is a part of the trade as well.”
“They don’t make movies about going down to the grocery store, buying a bag of tomatoes, coming home and making spaghetti. This is not the nature of cinema or drama. They’re based on conflict, and the conflict is meant to produce distilled behavior.”
“Acting has everything to do with taking liberties, breaking the rules.”
“Billy wilder said to me, ‘what the public likes about your characters is you’re always playing a guy who has this tremendous ability at any given moment to say, ‘Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’ And that’s what the people love, because they can’t do that.’ But even there, I boil against all definitions. I don’t want to be put in a nutshell, in fact, quite the opposite. Nobody can tell me I couldn’t play…you pick any of two extreme people. I could play the President of the United States or a drooling, retarded woman. Between those poles, I don’t see where my limitations are. Maybe they’re there, but I’m not going to be the one who accepts them, or defines them. I’m not trying to kill myself off as an artist by doing interviews that reveal everything about what I do.”
“The work is only meant to provoke a stimulating point of departure. An artist provides a stimulating point of departure. That’s where his hopes are.”
