I've been fortunate that I can be selective enough to do acting when it's really furthering what I want to do with my life.
I was so bad in school that acting gave me some kind of identity and gave me a home.
I'm very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.
With acting, there is a level of anonymity which is conducive to your profession. There are examples of very public people who are on the cover of every celebrity magazine but can't open a film.
In acting, you can always grow and get better - even if you think you're at your limit.
The feeling of being at sea has put me in touch with who I am to a greater degree than if I had been on land all these years. So, in a roundabout way, I imagine it does inform my acting.
When I came out to L. A., I got a part in an episode of 'Star Trek: Voyager,' and I hired an acting coach.
I don't really get a buzz from playing characters that are similar to me 'cause that's not acting to me.
I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.
After being in one movie, it didn't seem like that would be my life. I had done several jobs, briefly. I'd been a shipping clerk, I worked in a copy shop, I didn't think the acting was going to go on and on.
Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'
You don't really think about 3D when you're acting. As a director, you do.
My passion is more specific, in the sense that I've always liked doing comedy. I've always liked doing music. I like acting. And apparently, you need those things in movies.
As far as acting goes, you get to a certain point where, I think, everyone can do the job, and it comes down to a level of commitment. I think sometimes all you have to do is show up.
Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.
Acting is not about anything romantic, not even fantasy, although you do create fantasy.
It is precisely as though I were possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.
I feel like this is the way I was meant to interact with acting. Which is as a director, and helping, working with actors to find their way. Facilitating their performances is so satisfying for me.
When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting.
Acting is all about creative ideas and sharing, so the more places those ideas come from, the better.
Acting is glamour but writing is hard work, so I'm going to be an actress.
Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize - it's a far more visceral experience. It's really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person's backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It's just kind of impossible.
Vary the pace... is one of the foundations of all good acting.
To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting.
Commercials are 20 seconds long, so you don't get to experiment with your characters. But in films, you get to try out your acting skills.
For me, acting is doing.
Acting is pretty much my whole life.
My parents went crazy when they found out that I had gotten the part in 'Conversations With My Father!' I'd never given acting a thought. They were proud of me and very encouraging.
Acting isn't a singular profession, it is a collaborate profession.
If you're saying the same line 10 times and making it look like you just came up with it, that's acting.
A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.
My first big break was 'White Chicks.' I had only been acting for about two years and I certainly didn't feel like I was ready for such an opportunity. It could only be the hand of God blessing me. I accept everything I'm given with great appreciation.
Having an interview in English is difficult for me, but acting in English is much harder. Because when I'm acting in English, if someone points out bad pronunciation or accent, I cannot focus on my emotions anymore, so it was very hard.
I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.
I started acting before that when I was about 13 or 14.
I had my heart set on becoming an English teacher, but stumbled into acting after meeting a theatrical agent in my dad's restaurant in San Diego.
