Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.
Interpretation
Actors should fully embody their characters without judgment to deliver authentic performances.
In this quote, Alan Rickman emphasizes the importance of understanding and fully inhabiting the characters an actor portrays. Judging a character limits the depth of performance, as true acting requires empathy and immersion into the character's motives and justifications, allowing for a more genuine portrayal that resonates with the audience.
In practice
In a workshop for aspiring actors, this quote can be shared to encourage them to fully embrace their roles.
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.
You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'
I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist.
To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.
Documentaries deal with people who live real, everyday lives. But if these people trusted us and told us the truth about their lives, it could be used against them - which sometimes happened.
This great purple butterfly,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the prison of my hands,_x000D_ _x000D_ Has a learning in his eye_x000D_ _x000D_ Not a poor fool understands.
I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.
I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.
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