Top 60 Liev Schreiber Quotes

I really don’t think there is anybody in the business with better eyes than Elijah Wood.

My style was always intuitive. I never used to believe in working on your body. Anything that smacked of vanity to me was bad for your acting, but I learned that wasn’t true.

I’ve never been a heavy practitioner of the method or, at least, with any specific intent; I’m kind of an impulse-based person. Like, I’m sort of waiting for something to happen that I’m not expecting, and I kind of want to jump on that train of emotion, whatever it is, both from myself or from the other actor.

That’s really how I got started was doing Shakespeare. When I got out of school, I was lucky enough to meet George Wolfe, who ran The Public Theater.

The best gig is the one you’ve got.

I really never thought I was that good at film. And honestly still don’t. My strength is language. My background is monologues and a certain kind of Brechtian spin on theater.

I have Slavic fat pads that make me look like a chipmunk and arched predatory eyebrows. With that, you’re not going to get funny. That’s why I play so many bad guys.

There’s the private persona and the public persona and the two shall never meet.

I was always curious about motivation and intention, and really, that’s a lot of what acting is. I was a little bit different.

It’s good to overexpose yourself with work. But don’t expose yourself too much with the press.

Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They’re generally smarter and more interesting, but they’re often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.

My grandfather was raising me, and in many respects, I was trying to understand what it meant to be a man. He was my role model.

If you fall in love with somebody you’re working with, fine, but wait till your project is over.

I think conflicted characters are always more interesting.

Everyone says villains are thankless parts, but those are really the best roles.

The premise for me has always been that it’s vulnerable people who do violent things. And the more vulnerable they feel, often, the more violent they are. But I think, you know, that’s an idea that comes from history, from classical theater, for me.

You watch a hockey game, and the hand-eye coordination and the speed is really miraculous; how those guys track the puck alone, just following it with their eyes.

I was always drawn to tough girls. I liked that domineering thing.

If you are going to remake a film, you may as well remake a classic.

The guy who kind of broke the story in ‘Spotlight’ was a priest, the guy who had sort of done all the research. One of the things he said when one of the ‘Spotlight’ reporters asked him how he could still remain a Catholic, he said that, ‘My faith is in the eternal, and the church is an organization.’

You should never ask actors about politics.

I find that the most interestingly written parts happen to be the bad guys.

I’m terrible with big parties.

Hamlet is a remarkably easy role. Physically it’s hard because it tends to be about three hours long and you’re talking the whole time. But it’s a simple role and it adapts itself very well, because the thing about Hamlet is, we all are Hamlet.

And I think for me there’s a lot of neurosis involved with where you should be or thinking about where you are all the time instead of being where you are.

The funny thing is that I write and I act a lot about being Jewish, but I don’t really think about it as a regular person.

I think, the first time I played Iago at the Public Theater, I realized I had a – much to my chagrin – I realized I had an instinct for these conflicted characters, for these torn characters, for these characters who could be described as evil. I wouldn’t describe them that way.

I’m someone who started in the theater and really couldn’t stand repeating the show. My favorite part of acting is the five or six weeks of rehearsal that you get. I like doing previews; I like the opening week because my friends and family come, and then after that, I don’t want to do it anymore.

You know, I have a deep, deep affinity for Dr. Seuss.

You can think about your career or you can think about your job. I like to think about my job.

There’s nothing more exciting than that conversation you have with a live audience. It’s the best feeling in the world.

I’ve got nothing against L.A. I think it is a really beautiful place. To be able to surf and get out in the Pacific Ocean every once in a while. The hiking, all of that is amazing. I love it there.

Some actors need to be rattled and some need to be focused.

Where else do you find great directors? Acting is one of the places.

I did some research into what was going on in terms of the sexual revolution that was happening in the ’60s in the gay community and particularly in the drag world. Before the ’60s, guys doing drag would dress like their mothers or iconic Hollywood actresses.

I’m a typically lazy person. It is sort of characteristic of actors.

During ‘Manchurian Candidate’ – that role originated with Laurence Harvey, and I studied everything he did. I would never be able to reproduce that performance, but I got a lot of ideas from watching it.

I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it’s a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.

You’d think true masculinity was just calm and collected happiness. So alpha male that it needs not or worries not. But typically masculine characters are always fighting, and most violence comes from some agitated level of fear and anxiety.

I’m misrepresented as a scary person. I’m not. It’s all about my size and my eyebrows.

I’m actually a very bad surfer, which is good because everybody likes a bad surfer. Nobody likes a good surfer.

Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.

Home is New York.

If I’m doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone’s personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.

The worst bar fights I ever saw were in London. I saw a guy break a pint glass in another guy’s face in a club in the Eighties. It was a gay club, too.

I think it’s really, really important to mix it up as an actor, to try to get as much kind of varied experience as you can, not only for your own personal growth as an actor but for the audience to keep them guessing about what you’re going to do.

As soon as you know what you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong. That’s what I find with acting. As soon as it becomes padded, it becomes pat.

I grew up in the Lower East Side of New York.

I was a writer. I just wasn’t a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I’d be a better actor than I would a playwright.

I’m kind of an obsessive-compulsive person, like, neat obsessive.

And you know, I hate to admit this, but I don’t always think in terms of Shakespeare. When I eat, I do. When I’m at a restaurant, I’ll think, ‘Hmm, what would Macbeth have ordered?’

It’s finding time for each other. That’s the trick to any relationship, you know. Finding time to really be present for each other.

I manage to hide in my movies.

I love my mother and father. The older I get, the more I value everything that they gave me.

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been a huge target for the press, and I value that to a degree, because there’s a certain value for actors staying beneath the radar so they can play characters.

Actors, you know, they’re often awkward people in real life.

I’m not that interested in working with impervious people.

That’s one of the benefits of working on big budget films. You work with people who have a lot of experience and you get to learn a lot.

Don’t hit people; don’t let it get you too angry; remember that everything you do can and will be used against you. And take a breath and have some perspective.