I didn’t understand how you could be an actor if you didn’t also study philosophy and study political science, astronomy. And also just go out and live life and have experiences.

Marling frames acting not as a purely technical craft but as an intellectual and experiential practice. By pairing philosophy, political science, and astronomy with “go out and live life,” she suggests that compelling performance depends on a widened sense of what it means to be human—ethical inquiry, social awareness, and even cosmic perspective—alongside firsthand experience. The quote also implies a resistance to narrow professionalization: an actor’s credibility comes from curiosity and lived complexity, not only from training. In a broader sense, it argues for interdisciplinary learning as a way to deepen empathy and imagination, the raw materials of character and story.