Acting has always existed alongside my normal life. It's been a case of learning on the job. I've worked in so many styles with so many people so I've picked bits up from everyone and everything.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

A man of knowledge lives by acting not by thinking about acting.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality.

I've been acting my whole life. I have this huge imagination! I'm a dancer and my mom's a dance teacher and I was always performing and entertaining people. I'd go to see live theatre or a movie and I'd become the main character for a few days afterwards. I loved being somebody new for a temporary amount of time.

There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

By going over your day in imagination before you begin it you can begin acting successfully at any moment.

On 'Into The Wild' I spent months risking my life and on 'Speed Racer' I spent 60 days acting in front of a green screen. No danger to my physical self but I sure had to use my imagination.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.