Sherman Hemsley Quotes

I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.

I didn't do school plays... I've never done a play in my life, actually. Not even a nativity. If I'd been in a school play, I'd probably have sneezed and messed everything up.

It feels like the more I'm out there in the public eye, the more criticism I get. You need to have confidence - that's what it takes to walk out there and sing a song in front of a huge group of people.

When you're onstage and you know you're bombing, that's very, very scary. Because you know you gotta keep going - you're bombing, but you can't stop. And you know that half an hour from now, you're still gonna be bombing. It takes a thick skin.

I conquered my stage fright a long time ago. In my line of work, it's kind of a pre-requisite that you not feel bad about looking stupid in front of a lot of people.

I still remember the first gig where I got people going, it was Rascals in New Jersey, and the place was packed. I was scared. People were expecting me to be funny. I gotta be honest, every time I walk into a club, it's that same fear.

I don't feel nervous or fearful when I'm on stage.

Sometimes, the most daunting thing about performing is making eye contact with your audience, so just look above them and at the corners of the room. Soon, you'll totally forget they're there.

My skirt fell off on stage during a performance of Hairspray on Broadway, revealing my fat suit over my own natural fat suit. I turned to the audience and said, 'Now you know why I spent six years in a square.'

I find doing speeches nerve wrecking.

I've never not appeared in front of a live audience for any longer period than a month or two.

I haven't really done a lot of comedy. It's something that terrifies me.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

There's some anxiety the 30 minutes before the show starts. But once you step on stage and face the people, everything goes away, and you have fun and enjoy the audience.

Once I'm on stage, the energy of the crowd wipes my nerves away.

In high school, I was too shy to perform. It's one thing to get laughs from your family, to be funny at parties and in class. It's another thing to get up on the stage.

The first time I sang in front of an audience, I was about 14 - it was at my guitar school's showcase, and there were about 30 people there. I was so nervous, but I did it.

I've never felt nervous in front of big crowds and in big stadiums.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

I spent a lot of time taking acting lessons... Actors have no inhibitions, and I'm inhibited by everything. To be able to make fun of yourself is a skill and a liberating experience.

When I was five or six, I asked to sing at a big family party, and ever since I got up there in front of everyone in my suit - it had a blue collar, like in 'Scarface' - I had the bug.

I'm the world's worst after-dinner speaker. I need pictures to respond to. I was the voice of the lottery balls once and got the sack.

I'm not a natural born performer.

I was in sixth grade the first time I was required to speak in front of an audience. I had terrible stage fright and felt quite ill, in fact, by the time I had to give my little talk to students in another class across the hall.

I'm nervous performing because it's such a weird thing to do, standing on stage demanding people's attention.