Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind.
Interpretation
Every character an actor portrays includes a reflection of their own self, making them relatable and believable.
In this quote, Scarlett Johansson emphasizes the intrinsic connection between an actor and their characters. She suggests that even when playing someone vastly different from themselves, there is still a fragment of their own personality infused within, contributing to the authenticity of the portrayal. This connection highlights the importance of instinct in an actor's performance as opposed to intellectual constructs created in the mind.
In practice
During an acting workshop, to inspire fellow actors to embrace their unique traits.
I don't think there's any kind of preparation for sudden celebrity. I think you almost have this slight nervous breakdown when that kind of media attention happens. I mean, you're doing the same kind of thing that you do all the time, only you have to make these weird adjustments. Like, you're buying a slice of pizza and somebody's outside photographing you which is weird - that's not normal! It's very uncomfortable.
I don't want to be the ingenue anymore. It's nice to be glamorous, but I don't want to always be an object of desire. Because it doesn't last.
It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
The things that affect you most deeply - the things that will destroy you if you don't sing about them - are the things that you often end up singing about. It's really just about saying those things that everybody thinks but no one will say and making a connection by uncovering these diamonds that are inside of all of us that no one wants to tell each other about.
In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.
I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.
The material of literary talent is words; the material of story talent is life itself.
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
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