Stephen Gostkowski Quotes

You've gotta leave enough space for your actors to bring stuff to the table and whatever the weather's doing that day or what the light's like. Things can shift, and you have to be malleable. Every day is a different feeling and a change.

You're better off not preparing, because what you prepare will always be wrong.

It's hard to plan for what comes next when what comes next is not something you planned for.

You can map out a light plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to the reflexes you developed in training. That's where roadwork shows - the training you did in the dark of the mornin' will show when you're under the bright lights.

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change.

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

I'll tell you one thing, in what I do for a living, there's no substitute for experience. I don't care how much natural talent you may have... In the type of show I do, you can depend on surprises.

But that's one of the nice things about doing a stage show, if something doesn't work out, you have the luxury of working on it over time.

I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.

If you're sitting around and doing Chekhov and the cat walks in, you must pay attention to the cat. You cannot continue the dialogue of Chekhov without including the cat. So on live television, we'd automatically go into ad-lib gear.

The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from these surprises is to diversify.

I've tried to force a solo before, but sometimes it's like, 'That thing don't really fit, man!'

Sometimes we have a match at 11 in the morning, sometimes at 9 P.M. We need to always be adapting; we don't have a match at the same time every week, so it's important to be open with everything.

When you're auditioning, hold on loosely. Work hard on it at home, like you always do. But when you're in the room, let a choice happen to you rather than forcing a choice that's not ready to come. You'll surprise yourself and, hopefully, the people in the room.

Every day, you got to do adjustments. Every pitch. You got to do what it takes.

As much as you try to organize your life, life will surprise you.

There will be ups and downs. Other teams will adapt to us, but everything will be OK in the end. We know we have to learn everything perfectly for this to work.

Different coaches have different schemes, so for me, it's about learning and being able to adjust and adapt to these coaches. It fills your toolbox.

Growing up not being the biggest guy around, you learn different ways of playing tennis. I've learned to adapt.

I'm used to things not coming in the packages you expect.

If you can, anticipate that life is going to be full of detours.

For me, you have to do as much work as you can beforehand and, once you get on stage or set, throw it out the window because you need to be collaborative. You shouldn't have too many ideas about where it goes before you get into the room with the director and other actors.

Always plan, but never plan on your plans.

Everybody in the world knows that plans tend to change.