Comedy scares me a lot. I feel like it's way harder than drama. I think my safety net is definitely drama and I would love to kind of be able to be able to push into the comedy world and do something kind of like a Christopher Guest kind of style show. That, to me, is my kind of comedy. Like, Ricky Gervais comedy. That's my kind of thing.

Tatiana Maslany

Categorized in : Thinking Drama Safety

Have fun, be yourself, enjoy life and stay positive.

Tatiana Maslany

being-yourself stay-positive fun

Go with your gut every single time. It’s never, ever wrong. Even if feels like everybody else is telling you that you need to do this or do that. Your gut is your artist and who you are as a person and what makes you special, and what makes you an interesting performer. Never try to be something you’re not.

Tatiana Maslany

artist special interesting

I love nerdy work. I love writing notes. I try to go back, as much as I can, to feed what happens and why they do what they do.

Tatiana Maslany

notes writing trying

My brothers are so much a part of who I am, and such a large part of my heart and my drive. I've never had a kid, but I understand that whole, "I would kill for my family" kind of thing. I understood it, it resonated with me. It's a very primal, animal thing that you feel for your family.

Tatiana Maslany

brother heart kids

There's something about music that makes me feel like a different person, that feels like an escape.

Tatiana Maslany

different persons feels

Sometimes I'll go into a shop and speak in a different accent to see if I can pull it off. But then somebody will be like, 'Where did you say you were from again?' And then I panic, and my accent dissolves, and I pretend like I wasn't doing it in the first place.

Tatiana Maslany

panic different firsts

The most bizarre demographics come up to me. Men in their 50s come up to me and are like, "Alison is my favorite. I hated her at first, and now I love her." I don't know what that says about people's psychology.

Tatiana Maslany

psychology men people

I think the fact that my parents are still, "Hey, great, that's great!" and not, "We need you to do this and be a star!" - it was never like that. My mom's a translator, my dad's a woodworker; that's the world I grew up in, that's the world I'm most comfortable in. The whole idea of Hollywood or any of that other stuff that unfortunately goes along with film, that wasn't part of my upbringing, thankfully.

Tatiana Maslany

parent world thinking

It's the reason we go to films and watch television: to escape the mundane nature of life and see another world and see ourselves in that other world. I think that's what sci-fi does so well.

Tatiana Maslany

other-worlds doe thinking

I love performing. I love doing improv. It's a totally terrifying experience, but it's something that I've always felt so strongly about and that I'm kind of obsessed with. And just as an actor, it's a great exercise. It's a great playground, you know, to try things out and to work on your skills. Because the mandate of improv is kind of the same as acting: It's all about your scene partner, it's all about being present and in the moment and exploring together as a team, a collaboration.

Tatiana Maslany

team exercise trying

I think the improv also helps with the imagination of dealing this person across from me who's not physically there. When you do an improv scene, you're usually working on a blank stage and creating the props and creating the environment.

Tatiana Maslany

imagination helping thinking

John Cassavetes' films have really altered the way I see film and acting and storytelling and emotion and love, so I see acting as this incredible revealing of human nature and this means of telling our story, sharing our voice with the world. That's what acting is for me. It allows for people to experience things through the character, through the story.

Tatiana Maslany

character mean people

Those darker sides, the things that we don't want to admit about ourselves - that's what excites me.

Tatiana Maslany

darker-side sides want

I think being idle is quite hard for me to do.

Tatiana Maslany

idle hard thinking

I've learned a lot about the limits of what I can do, as an artist, or what I'm willing to do. It's a lot of responsibility to carry a show and to speak to people on different levels.

Tatiana Maslany

artist responsibility people

I'll never, never understand why people think it's their business to comment on other people's bodies. I go to a spa in LA sometimes, a Korean day spa, and all the women there are nude. And I've never felt so in love with the human form as when I'm walking around and seeing all those bodies, thinking, Oh my god, we're all just built so differently. And every single body is beautiful. I will never understand that shame, and the reinforcement of that shame. It's crazy.

Tatiana Maslany

crazy beautiful thinking

I'm at the transition place myself, still playing high school girls but moving to a stage when I'm playing older roles and going to the places of stillness and wisdom and knowledge and weight. It's exciting and scary.

Tatiana Maslany

girl school moving

It's wild to be seen differently and have more visibility, but it's rewarding.

Tatiana Maslany

visibility

Clothing and makeup and hair and all of that so much indicates the kind of person you are inside and the person you are presenting on the outside. Sometimes they are in conflict, and sometimes they are the same. That psychology of the exterior informing the interior is just so interesting.

Tatiana Maslany

makeup hair interesting

I think the idea of family and protecting the family is something that ties a lot of these women together.

Tatiana Maslany

together thinking