Ricky Steamboat Quotes

I'm one of those wrestlers that leaves everything to the audience and to the fans. I never plan anything, and you will never see Alberto Patron planning in the back what he is going to do in the match.

I love wrestling, and I love telling a story to the audience.

Wrestling is to go out there and perform and make people believe that either of the performers in the ring can win - either the bad guy or the good guy.

This isn't a competitive sport. Wrestling is not the NFL or the NHL. It's not really sports. It's entertainment. And in order to be entertaining, you have to create emotion. And you can't create emotion by simply having a wrestling match.

You want, whenever you're telling a story, to have a certain amount of range, and you want to be able to take the audience on that ride with you.

That's what we do in the WWE: we tell stories; we're characters. We go into the ring, and my character is telling a story in the ring against another character.

Acting and singing are actually very similar because they're both telling a story.

Storytelling is about listening in any media.

Our job is to unleash the play. It's not just about your character or interaction with the other characters. There's an energy in all good plays which you have to find. And that is part and parcel of ensuring that an audience gets what it's about.

Wrestling ultimately comes down to what happens when the bell rings, and it comes down to athleticism, storytelling, and characters - and what we're doing in 'Lucha Underground' is the highest-quality wrestling out there.

I'm a yarn teller. My job is to engage you as much as I can and as often as I can.

A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don't.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.

There's a positive side to film and television, the sense of feeding into the theater... Your fans will follow you, hopefully, and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

It's communication - that's what theatre is all about.

The shouting and opinion and jokes don't exist if there isn't first a story.

If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it's got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It's not therapy - it's supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.

You have an hour and a half or two hours - maybe two and a half hours - in a movie, and it has to be a self-contained three-act structure. It's like a rock and roll song. Certain things have to happen for it to be a toe-tapper and get people excited, leaving the theater.

My characters populate a big, vibrant world. Sometimes they rub shoulders. Sometimes they don't.

With the theatre, for God's sake, everything makes sense. You create a clear sequential reality for a specific audience at one particular time.

'Heel Turn 2' is about a person who's in a match, and he's playing as though the match were real. But it is real! If you're standing in the middle of a ring, and you're playing the villain, and everyone is booing and throwing things at you, that's real.

I don't have a favorite genre. I love to work and live vicariously through every character. It's all about trying to bring the character to life and get the story across in a way that resonates with the audience. It's always interesting and challenging in a gratifying and unique way.

Acting is the most communicative thing I can imagine doing.

I went to a seminar early in my career on the craft of storytelling by Robert McKee. It was really life altering. There are basic principles on how to craft an engaging story and he covers them well. He's got a book out, 'Story,' that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in improve their storytelling.