Robert De Niro Quotes

I think the best thing you can do for an audition is to just do your work, be creative. It's OK to be spontaneous.

I don't really get nervous for auditions, because I just see them as mini acting classes. There's no need to have an attachment to the outcome because it's out of your hands after that.

When you are new to the business, you think if you give a really bad performance, that's one they will print. You will be judged. You just have to be brave.

I grew up on the stage, where you just throw yourself into projects and don't get in your own way.

I was able to go on stage and work until it felt right or felt good. It meant that I very quickly realised that it was the job for me.

Bryan Cranston's advice to actors, it's my favorite thing, and it changed my life. He said: Don't go into an audition to get the job, go to share your work. That was so liberating. You read it, interpret it, embody it the way you want to play that person and embody them with your whole heart and soul for those 20 minutes.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Believing in yourself and what you do is so important. It took me a long time to find that confidence. If you're an artist and you're taking risks, then you're doing something right if some people don't get it.

I don't need to be liked, but I need to be vital - on set or on stage - and I think that probably would be my advice: Stay vital. It's about saying 'no' and asking the tough questions and believing in yourself when no one else will, but you have to know the rules to break them.

If it is something that I want to do, then I don't think the audience will hate it. Unless I turn into a megalomaniac and start thinking that Salman Khan can do anything.

Art means to dare - and to have been right.

I don't care what anybody else is wearing. I feel like they're all waiting to see what I have on. If you really want to know the truth, that's what I think. They're waiting to see what I'mma do next.

Whenever you go into an audition, you have to be as prepared as possible.

You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.

The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say, 'This is my need; this is what's going to get me further; this is what's going to be alive. I don't ever say, 'Do you mind if...?' I just come in and do it.

Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.

I felt like I was flying without a net. But once I realized that the audience was my partner, I was flying a jet, because the people would allow me to develop the character on stage.

If people are making fun of you then you're probably doing something right.

Success gave me confidence as an artist. And now I'm able to do what I want without anybody thinking it's dumb.

I wish I had less fear about creating my own parts.

I would always pick pop songs and would sing them even if they were not correct for the audition - which didn't always get me a lot of jobs, but sometimes they did.

After 'Superstar,' I was encouraged. I felt audiences wanted to be challenged.

Sometimes in an audition, I'll genuinely do something I know they're not going to like.

The real trick to auditioning is just letting go of trying to please them. Make it your own. That took me a long time to learn.

I think I'm actually much too shy to do any performance art. I admire the big swings those guys take, but I'm not a one-man band.