Kurt Elling Quotes

Improv is so freeing because there are no bounds; there's no safety net. You just say something and get an instant response.

I like to improvise.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

There's actually something interesting about having no rehearsal time - you have to just walk in and go with your gut, which is exciting.

There's a big difference between me and other YouTubers - a lot of them have big, concrete plans. I'm still this weird chicken with my head cut off. I don't know what I want to do next and haven't known that since I started.

There is a part of your brain that has to stop when you're acting. You have to be in the moment and dare to fly. Words can't be on your mind.

I don't write any of my material down. I like to improvise and be spontaneous.

What I love about jazz is the improvisation, the fact that you never know what's going to happen next.

I just write what I think is funny, or interesting, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself. There's no strategy to anything.

A lot of improvisation and freedom went into 'Pinata.'

The beauty of the unexpected and unknown, and it's certainly very tantalizing for me as an actor. Other actors can't deal with that; they want to know, but then they make choices and decisions with that knowledge because that knowledge gives them forethought, and they can think about how they want to play something that takes away spontaneity of what they could be doing.

When you're young, you're fearless and more creative, more of an outsider.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

I never work out my leads. Everything I do is usually totally spontaneous. If someone says, 'That was good; play that again,' I'm not able to do it.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I'm convinced to do improv. All you have to do is listen to what people are saying to you, and then just add more information to what they've just said. That's all there is to improv, but it's the hardest thing to do.

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

I love improvising on the spot. I like that pressure.

You can't plan everything - if I did a performance exactly how I rehearsed it, it would be so boring.

I love improvisation. It's quite exciting.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.

I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes or variations that lead to mastery... I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty. Other qualities may be more conducive to achievement, publicity, success; but they are all outworn - as outworn as ideologies, opinions, concepts and names for things.