If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of authenticity and instinct in acting over rote memorization.
Olivia Colman reflects on her approach to acting, suggesting that a well-written script contains all the necessary elements for a performance. She expresses her preference for embodying the character honestly rather than merely memorizing lines for auditions, which she feels compromises the authenticity of the portrayal. Her method may not align with traditional expectations, but it has proven effective for her career.
In practice
During an acting workshop, this quote can be shared to inspire students to trust their instincts.
When you've got children, it's easy to do that thing of keeping a tally of who woke up earliest and whose turn it is to put them to bed. But I think the important thing is to appreciate and love each other and to show that appreciation.
I had a lovely, feral, free childhood - out and then come back when you're hungry or it gets too dark. I feel slightly cruel that I'm not offering my children the same.
My mum was a nurse, and her passion was geriatric care. I used to love listening to the old people's stories in her nursing home and picturing myself in their place. They'd say, 'I went to school in a horse and cart,' and I'd just think 'Wow!' I'd picture myself in their place - acting was a natural progression.
There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.
Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.
There's this inherent screenplay structure that everyone seems to be stuck on, this three-act thing. It doesn't really interest me. To me, it's kind of like saying, 'Well, when you do a painting, you always need to have sky here, the person here and the ground here.' Well, you don't.
I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is.
In New York, a 13-year-old Indian girl came up to me crying, saying to everyone nearby, 'This is where I come from.' It's easy to forget that actors have the ability to instill a sense of self in viewers. That's the greatest compliment.
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.
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