QuoteProject
Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself, and your imagination and experience, but actually, in the end, you're not playing yourself.
Ralph Fiennes
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the duality of an actor's role, balancing self-presentation with the portrayal of diverse characters.

Ralph Fiennes highlights the essence of acting, which involves inviting an audience's gaze while transcending one's own identity to embody various roles. It emphasizes that actors draw upon personal experiences and creativity, yet their ultimate aim is to transport viewers into different worlds, suggesting a deep connection between self and character despite the separation.

Themes

ActingPerformanceIdentityImaginationTheater

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the complexities of performing arts, one might cite this quote to emphasize the transformative nature of acting.

More from Ralph Fiennes

So much of movie acting is in the lighting. And in loving your characters. I try to know them, and with that intimacy comes love. And now, I love Voldemort.
Ralph FiennesRead
I spent the past week here in India getting a sense of the reality of HIV and AIDS in people's lives. Fathers and mothers are dying, leaving children with no support. Stigma and discrimination is ruining the family lives. There is an urgent need for education, information, and increased awareness of HIV and AIDS. The response needs to be now. We cannot afford to become fatigued.
Ralph FiennesRead
I don't plan a career. That doesn't work for me. I just have to go with my gut.
Ralph FiennesRead
When you meet women, don't pretend to be anything that you're not.
Ralph FiennesRead
As an actor, there's a bit of you that's decided you want to be looked at and watched, but there's a paradoxical bit that wants to run away.
Ralph FiennesRead
Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.
Ralph FiennesRead

Similar quotes

I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Twyla TharpRead
When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen.
Hilary MantelRead
Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.
Igor StravinskyRead
Finding a photograph is often like picking up a piece from a jigsaw-puzzle box with the cover missing. There’s no sense of the whole. Each image is a mysterious part of something not yet revealed.
Susan MeiselasRead
I think cooks that are just interested in molecular gastronomy are cooks that will never be chefs.
Dominique CrennRead
That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think.
Kurt EllingRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.