Peter MacNicol Quotes

I was so intimidated by the thought of improvising back in the '80s when I was in Chicago. I think the opportunity only even came up once that I can recall, and I turned down the offer. It was to go improvise in some club in the suburbs or something. Good God, I couldn't think of anything more frightening than to get up there without a plan.

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.

I normally feel relief that I didn't die onstage or forget all my lines. Then I start remembering that I have to do it again sometime, and it'll probably not go as well.

I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.

I'm very bad with improvisation. I hate it.

When you're onstage in theater, if you mess up a line, there's no 'Cut! We'll get it again.' It's full steam ahead.

Taking a solo on a tune is always a little bit scary.

You can go onto that stage every night, and it's always the equivalent of going onto the topmost diving board, and you don't know if there's any water in the pool.

If I'm not nervous, if I don't have at least a little bit of the same self-doubt and anxious feelings I had when I started playing, then it will be time for me to go on. I must have that tension.

I did an improv that was one of the most exhilarating ten minutes of my entire life. I mean, when you're doing it, you forget yourself.

Performance was a shock to me. The first time I remember feeling I could do it was during the making of my first video, 'Fun for Me.' I couldn't sleep the night before the shoot, I was so frightened. I had to play a ghost and a piece of merchandise in a shop window, and I had no idea whether I was going to be able to pull it off.

I have been dancing for a really long time, but when I get on stage, I forget all about that!

I think from doing so many live shows it gives you a real appreciation of being present. You don't know what's going to happen, you don't know what is around the corner.

I had gigged so much from the age of 11 to 20 that I got to a stage where I actually got less nervous the bigger the gig. But you need those butterflies: they make you feel alive.

I don't prepare for a live show.

There are often days when I've sat down in my office for hours and prepped for a show knowing, three minutes before I go on, some big crazy thing happens where everything is thrown out, and the teleprompter goes blank.

I was on 'AGT,' and I was like, 'Well, face it Darci, you are just going to probably get out on the first live round.'

Live television is just like competing on live TV. You're never going to be perfect. You just try to prepare the best that you can and execute the best that you can and try to be in the moment.

I've learnt that from stand-up - you should always worry that it's going to go badly, otherwise you're too laissez faire.

I do a little improv in my shows. Kind of like our movie, I'll do beats and ideas of dialogue, but I think there's less pressure because it's a live show. If you mess up, the audience laughs because we don't really know what we're doing. But as far as shooting, that was very scary, trying to make a point and drive the film. It definitely helped improvising.

I couldn't worry about whether I'm gonna make it onstage or not. You can't. You just gotta do it. And if you do, you do, and if you don't, you don't, and then something else happens. That's the point of the live performance.

Every time I improvise I'm aware that I could be ruining what it is that we're doing and we'll just have to do it again.

It's terrifying to be the lead. There's a moment of excitement, and then pure terror.

Feels like I'm in a play and I don't know all my lines.