I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.
For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.
It takes two years on the stage for an actor or an actress to learn how to speak correctly and to manage his voice properly, and it takes about ten years to master the subtle art of being able to hold one's audience.
The doctors must tell you that one of the risks of surgery is that you might die. This poor doctor was talking to an actress. It was very dramatic to me. To him, it was just a thing he had to say.
And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.
The thing with me is, if I wake up one morning and I'm not happy working as an actress, I'll stop. It's not something I have to do. It's not a vocation.
Being an actress is a very physical thing. If I didn't look the way I looked, I would never have started in films.
As an actress people always tease me like: if there's anything you can do to make yourself unattractive you will do it.
I was fanatically ambitious. All I ever wanted was to be a star. I didn't want to be a singer. I didn't want to be an actress. I wanted to be a star.
As a means to an end, modelling was good, but I had to distance myself from it when I started working as an actress, because even though I wasn't high-profile, I found in my first write-ups that I'd be referred to as 'model Gemma Chan.'
I hope to be known as a chameleon actress, as someone who can play any part out there, and someone who can transform herself into any kind of character there is.
I think my parents knew before I did that I was going to be an actress, because I was doing impressions of Margaret Thatcher at the age of four.
When I started out in this business, dance was not at the height it is now. It was almost like, you're either a dancer or an actress.
Increasingly, stars are recruited from the ranks of professional models, with the result that today's starlets are better dressed and better groomed than ever before, though it is doubtful if they are better actresses.
You always hear actresses talk about how unromantic it is to act a love scene or a sex scene - which it is. You're doing it with all these lights on and cameras flying around and people on the set.
I think, as an actress, people get on your case if you do the same thing over and over again. But if you get too far away from that, people don't like that, either.
Because of the fact that being a professional actor is not a career that is widely pursued back home in the Cayman Islands, I never thought it was a viable profession. It didn't even cross my mind. So when I knew I wanted to do theater, I didn't think 'actress,' even though I loved to perform.
I've learned to take jobs as an actress that is meaningful to me because I've never taken a job for the money.
I don't enjoy the life of an actress, but I don't want to go into that.
You could say I'm a character actress. Or maybe a character actress who does peculiar, interesting lead roles. Does that make sense?
Being an actress is to be in tune with the fantasies of a man. What woman never dreamt of that?
I was nourished and nurtured at Stratford as a very young actress. They guided me and forgave me!
I didn't want to be known as the reality-show star trying to be an actress, so I kept a lot of the failed auditions to myself.
I would be an actress for the rest of my life just because it's really relaxing. Writing is hard work, and stand-up is so stressful before you get on stage, but acting is a complete ensemble experience.
When I was in kindergarten, I had one line in a little play. I said, I am Patrick Potato and this is my cousin, Mrs. Tomato, and I heard laughter. I wanted to be an actress from that moment on.
Do you know how many plastic surgeries are done to the actors and actresses in Hollywood?
My mother was against me being an actress - until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra.
I go on a hunt for things that make sense to me and that I can actively play as an actress.
I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.
I decided to an actress because of the film 'La Dolce Vita.'
An actress who has the gift of swaying the emotions of an audience, of compelling tribute of tears, or of moving the public to joyous merriment, cannot always be satisfied to set aside her whole career, in the work that she loves, simply because she is married.
I've grown up so much here. It's been two years. I've become a woman here, I've become an actress here.
I didn't like when people said that actresses have shelf life.
I didn't choose to be an actress.
I had no desire to be an film actress, to always play somebody else, to be always beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eyelash. It was always a big bother to me.
I guess I was an early method actress. I would go to a quiet part of the sound stage with my mother. I wouldn't think of anything sad, I would just make my mind a blank. In a minute I could cry.