Usually on films, you get used to kind of being told, 'This is what you're going to wear, this is what you're going to hold, and remember, you're lucky to be here, and shut up.'
— Katherine Waterston
Actors are sensitive freaks, but it amazes me that it is something that I haven't improved on over the years.
I basically never believed that I was a commercial actor. Just because of the outcome of many auditions over time. No one hired me.
Self-promotion is not my strong suit, for sure. I don't look down on it; I just don't understand how to do it.
Seeing someone happy on set is just a very small slice of the reality of an actor's life.
Costume design is so important and really helpful, and I really love that aspect of character development, just figuring it out.
When I got to NYU, I immediately inquired about doing a double major in acting and photography.
I've always wanted to play the villain. But the young girl is never the villain.
I didn't feel a specific pressure to prove myself because I had an actor in the family. I didn't feel that pressure to fill some big shoes or anything.
There are people who have really high expectations for what we're doing. I have to not think about that so that I can be free and play around every day and not feel like I have to get it right. You want to be loose.
I think that when you are struggling as an actor, you imagine that if things were to pan out, everything in your life would change, But really, it's not so different. You're still pursuing good work. You still panic that you're doing it all wrong.
I guess whatever the director's energy is is kind of contagious on set, because, um, you know, it's a hierarchy, and we're all kind of looking to the director for guidance.
There's something particular about the way Los Angeles feels in the summertime. It slows down and is hazy and dreamy, and you can put on certain music and go for a drive and be totally sober but feel stoned.
I don't like to talk about things unless I have to. I don't like to talk a scene to death or overanalyze it, especially if I feel like I have some way in on my own.
I was barely in 'Taking Woodstock.'
I thought acting was what grownups did. It was such a part of my childhood. I was already in love with performing before I knew there were other options. By then, it was too late.
I didn't find it difficult to live in the 'Inherent Vice' world or play those scenes, because they just seemed so real.
I find life so shocking in general. Everything about it surprises me.
There's kind of no rhyme or reason to what is appealing to any given actor. It just is, or it isn't. It's kind of like dating. You either connect to someone or you don't. You can't really say why.
It's very easy to think that the way things are is the way things will stay, and life just isn't like that.
I think everything happens organically. You mine for clues. It's all immersive, and stuff you can use comes out of that immersion. I don't really like to wear wigs in movies because I like to look like the character all the time.
When you come from a family of actors, people in show business, they really know to celebrate good news and to celebrate it hard because it's not every day that you get it.
I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know.
I feel like people assume if a character is very different than you, that means it's difficult to get into their head or into their skin.
I look back at my adolescence, and I'm shocked at the things I did that were my idea of adult behavior.
I don't think Paul Thomas Anderson has a standard approach to anything.
