Bryan Cranston's advice to actors, it's my favorite thing, and it changed my life. He said: Don't go into an audition to get the job, go to share your work. That was so liberating. You read it, interpret it, embody it the way you want to play that person and embody them with your whole heart and soul for those 20 minutes.
— Sian Clifford
I didn't have a huge amount of on-camera experience before 'Fleabag.' It has definitely changed me as an actor. I remember the actor I was before; I felt stifled by the industry and the boxes people tried to put me in.
My process as an actor is all about energy, just feeling the person in your body. I can feel their rhythm, I can feel how they speak, and I know what their response will be to everything.
As actors, our job is to step into other people's shoes, So our capacity for compassion is like, next level, and that's why it's rare that you find a non-liberal actor.
I had the Rada prospectus when I was 12.
Everyone's had a dodgy haircut at one point and think your life's over. Then there's always someone, whether it's a best friend or your mom or someone, who can talk you down.
It's so important that we take auditions less seriously, take your work seriously, but take the industry a whole lot less seriously because it is so fickle.
Many of us stay in situations that don't serve us because we don't want to confront the fact that we've failed.
It is the beauty and curse of this industry that you never know what is around the corner.
Find your champions, because Phoebe Waller-Bridge is mine.
Every single one of my girlfriends who's had a big breakup has gone and done some kind of makeover, including myself.
The real love story of 'Fleabag' is the sisters. That's the true heart of the piece.
I'd love more production houses to encourage artists to create what they want and not just churn things out.
For me, playing characters is always about an energy and feeling it in your body. That's when I know that the character arrived.
Drama school should set you up for failure in a really positive way, because your life as an actor is going to be rejection and it also should train you not be afraid of success either.
Fleabag' is its own genre. It isn't comedy. It isn't drama. It isn't even tragi-comedy.
Don't try to guess what a casting director wants.
People on the stage are desperate to do the screens, and people on the screens are desperate to do theater.
I do think haircuts completely change people.
I've wanted to act since I was seven. The year before, I'd been a munchkin in 'The Wizard of Oz' and was overcome with terror. The next year I just watched. My sister was in 'The Little Mermaid' and I had this deep knowing that I needed to be there on stage, not in the audience.
I always go where I feel the flow of energy is.
We have so little control as actors, but there are ways you can maintain your integrity. I have to say I've never compromised myself in this career once. I've never done something I didn't believe in.
I went to drama school and it didn't prepare me for the ruthlessness of the industry at all, or the reality of it.
