What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the unpredictable nature of the acting process and the discovery that comes with it.
Alan Rickman reflects on the unique experience of acting, emphasizing that uncertainty is an inherent part of the process. This lack of clarity can lead to unexpected discoveries and creativity, highlighting the importance of embracing the unknown in artistic endeavors.
In practice
In a drama workshop, this quote could be used to encourage participants to embrace their uncertainties.
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.
You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'
I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinée in Hull, it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction.
My kitchen is a mystical place, a kind of temple for me. It is a place where_x000D_ _x000D_ the surfaces seem to have significance, where the sounds and odors carry_x000D_ _x000D_ meaning that transfers from the past and bridges to the future.
The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.
If you take blue paint and yellow paint and you mix them, you get green paint. But if you take blue light and yellow light and mix them, you get white light. This is a shock to most people.
For, I must tell you, in this world where today all lose their minds over many & wondrous Machines - some of which, alas, you can see also in this Siege - I construct Aristotelian Machines, that allow anyone to see with Words.
Fiction is burdened for me with a sense of duty.
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