John Barrowman Quotes

As the actor, you can't be worried about the scene that you're going to playing two days from now. You think about what's going on right now and in the moment. That's what you worry about.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

I wanted really to make it moment to moment, partly because I'm an actor and that's how I operate - actors are all about creating the moment.

I'm an emotional actor. When I'm doing a scene, I really believe it. I live the part as long as I'm in the scene.

I always think that I love doing what I'm doing at the moment. The past is over. I can't go play one of those characters again. But I can play this and I can continue to grow in what I'm doing at the moment and that's really what I'm thinking about now.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

As an actor, you can't think about the end result or the fame; you just have to focus on the day you're in. You have no control over the finished product, what people will think of it, so all you have is the experience of making it, and you have to stay focused on that.

I immerse myself right into my character whether or not I'm relating to people live as an actor on stage or whatever.

I'm not a Method actress. I work in the present, the day-to-day.

The most fundamental important thing for me as an actor is maintaining a sense of play. It's so important.

You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change the present one moment at a time, stubbornly, until the future unwinds itself into the stories of our lives.

We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future; we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important principle follows, that how many images we have largely depends on how much past we have.

An actor definitely has to be in the past a well as the present; an actor must react to past experiences every minute, every second.

It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. All there is ever, is the now.

Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.

The bandstand is an incredible space. It is really a sacred space. One of the things that is really sacred about it is that you have no opportunity to think about the future, or the past.

The past is important for all the information and wisdom it holds. But you can get lost in it. You've got to learn to keep the knowledge of the past with you as you pursue the present.

I love making the backstory for myself. I think it's important. Every part I play, I work on the backstory. If it's fully written out in the script, or there are intimations of it in the script, fine. If not, fine, no problem. I'll fill it in, or I'll create what it is.

You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future.

With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there's a non-verbal way of how to act that. There's a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It's something I still have to learn.

The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the Future but a fiction of the mind.

The past gives great examples of what can happen in the future. It's always important to remember.

I always live in the present. The future I can't know. The past I no longer have.

Nowness or the magic of the present moment is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present

The past is no longer yours; the future is not yet in your power. You have only the present wherein to do good.