Michael Stuhlbarg

“Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.”

“Doing film and television demands a kind of simplicity. If you think something differently, the camera will pick it up.”

“Things never go the way you expect them to. That's both the joy and frustration in life. I'm finding as I get older that I don't mind, though. It's the surprises that tickle me the most, the things you don't see coming.”

“I wanted to be a cartoonist. I was one of those kids who sat around and drew in my room all the time.”

“Film, for me, has been a process of learning on the job.”

“Someone who's asking questions of the clergy, that he doesn't have the answers to, I think that's a universal predicament.”

“I did a play back in 2005 called 'The Pillowman,' which Martin McDonagh directed, in which, at the very end of the run, I caught a case of shingles. I had something burst on my forehead, so I actually have a mark on my forehead from that experience. But it's also an internal mark as well.”

“With each job that you're given an opportunity to do, you're asked to use new parts of yourself and to figure the play out with other tools that you perhaps didn't use with the last show.”

“Most of the people in New York are very often from somewhere else.”

“I put my best foot forward to make the best impression I could have, and it's been serving me well ever since.”

“With television, sometimes the writing is continuous and happening at every moment, and you'll get new pages at the last moment. We have to incorporate that into what it is that we're doing.”

“I've done a lot of theater work that has been quite diverse. I feel very fortunate to have had many different people think of me in many different ways. So, as an actor that's all you - all I want is diversity. So far in film and television work I have done has not been as diverse, and I hope it grows to be.”

“I think the theater work and the on-camera work feed off each other. My theater work has become more simple, and my on-camera work has become more energized or more spontaneous.”

“I find if you can look in the mirror and see something other than the face you see every day, it can free you up in terms of who you play. Wearing a mask can free you up.”

“When I try to go with what's happening and embrace that as much as I can, it seems to be a much smoother journey for me.”

“Making television is difficult. Making any art is difficult.”

“You never know what is going to happen in your life.”