Melissa Leo Quotes

I have been known for almost 30 years to sort of do whatever comes my way. It's always been touch-and-go after each job finishes. I just like to be working.

As actors, emotion is the sand in the sandbox for us. Without emotion, there's nothing to play - and we are playing. We know that. Whether you think we do or not, we know that.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke.

I'm very, very serious about what I do. I think there are a lot of people out there sort of thinking it's anybody's game. You know, "You pick up a camera and you make a movie." My experiences over the years have taught me there's a lot more than that to making a film - there's also getting the film seen, and all kinds of complex realities.

I have some close friends I keep in touch with. I knit. I watch a little too much TV. I ski, if the weather's right for that. If I can find a group of buddies, I go rock climbing.

The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking.

I don't tend to use technology all that much. Of course, I can't avoid it - it's called the telephone nowadays. And I do a certain amount of email, work-related primarily, on it. But I don't do a lot of looking for things online.

I was really not familiar at all with Edward Snowden. I like to get that right out of the way and really learned most of what I know from Oliver's [Stones] script.

I think I understand the line between my job and the director's. I have no interest in directing. Not my movie, not your movie, nobody's movie.

I love acting. I really do. I think that's maybe the one thing that is known about me.

I think the funny thing about acting for me - and I hold it in a very holy, spiritual way - not to be overly fundamentalist about it, but it's that important to me - is that it is an ancient healing art.

That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it.

The director is the captain of the ship, without question. No matter what their talent or energy level is, everyone on the crew has all eyes on the captain. If they come in going, "I don't know. Maybe we'll do this. Maybe we'll do that," you've got 10 days to shoot and they don't care what you're doing.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke. An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes.

It's not exactly an interview that's going on [in documentary]. I guess we do ask Edward Snowden some questions and we're recording him answering them and so on like that.

As an actor, you live a little bit of a cloistered life. It's a lonely life. You oddly, strangely find yourself all alone, quite often, with a lot of time to think.

One time, many, many years ago, I had the opportunity to dye my hair brunette for a film. And the day I walked out of the hotel where I had it done, I walked out onto the street and realized people looked me in the eye and greeted me good morning. I'd never had that experience before! And I began to notice that a brunette is treated as an affable human being. Later, when I dyed my hair for Lois Riley blonde, and then Alice Ward blonde, people come right up to you, they touch you on the arm, they ask you how you're doing. Men and women both! Blondes have more fun.

There is a wealth of knowledge to be understood from others' work, don't get me wrong, and when I do stumble upon others' work, it's not lost on me.

The power of television - it's so present in our lives, we don't even know how powerful it is.

I definitely consider myself a Method actor, because of my training. I might dispute what people consider a Method actor to be. For my money, a Method actor is an actor who has a technique. That has a method. And not one method, but whatever might be required. So a Method actor is always learning.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor. I'm not particularly fond of the hybrid writer-director, or actor-director. Writers, directors, actors are all such very different people. I think it's unusual that two of those people are in one human.

I'm a little bit of a glutton for punishment, especially when it comes to work. I don't mind a bit of suffering. I think it's in suffering that we realize our best selves.

Being an actor on a movie set is like going to the playground at recess.

Acting is the business of truth, so that we can see ourselves reflected back and learn.

I do, however, have tape over my eyepiece as well. What I think my peace is saying isn't, "Oh I have something to hide. I don't want you to look," it's more saying, "No thank you. I prefer you not look. I'm not giving you permission."

An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes.

You have this certain about of responsibility to play a fictitious character and you have a script that's guiding you and the other information of the custom department's choices, and the set department, "Where are you," and all those other pieces of information but you have to cull from your imagination the answer to all the unasked questions. And with a real person, there's someone to get that information from, perhaps.

You can't really gauge the difficulties of television. There's difficulties and joys that happen with an amazing, great team, when one is working. Television can be a very frustrating job for almost anybody working in television, because you're shooting episodically, and you don't know one scene from the next, and maybe they change around.

"I'm going to show you I haven't given you permission because clearly you're not grown up enough to understand that, not having given you permission, you can't just come look in my house." And I won't know if they're coming and looking or not... so I put a piece of tape over it.

The climate informs the character.

I think this notion of acting and glamour is getting in everybody's way.

It becomes more and more popular to call actors who play characters "character actors." But I've always been somebody who is much more invested in who I am playing than how they look.