Claron McFadden Quotes

Acting is like lying. The art of lying well. I'm paid to tell elaborate lies.

When you think about Broadway, you think broad and big, but the fact is there are so many plays that are very intimate, but fill a 1,500-seat house. Plays like 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' have deep moments of silence and intimacy to them.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

I have trouble watching singers because they are so sincere.

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

I'm a method actress in my songs, which is why it's hard to sing them.

I know I'm an opera singer, but we're actors, too.

Being an actor is like being a monk: you have got to be dedicated.

Projection of sound gives the stage a life different from real life. As actors and interpretive artists, we must not only be able to know the attitude of the script, we must also make ourselves heard - without amplification.

I am always excited to be an actor. If I wasn't, I would be acting, and the audience wouldn't watch me.

Just giving the people a great show, leaving it all on the stage. Like when I'm finished I don't want to go home with nothing, I want to leave it all there on the stage, that's what I'm thinking about before I hit the stage.

I don't do all of this as an indulgence. I do it because I'm not a good enough actor to not do it.

I love acting, and doing it well matters to me.

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

I don't think I'm an entertainer. I never think, 'Wow, I can't wait to get the crowd moving.' Some of my favorite bands never moved an inch.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

I wouldn't say that I was a born performer, because I work very hard at it.

It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

I'm on fire when I'm singing, I'm completely in character, I use my sense memories, and every syllable of it is meant. It's a very special thing.

On the stage, the characters express themselves more through words than images. So the arguments of the characters and the tension between characters - words have to be used to express that, and I love that about theater.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.

Musical theater is great; you get painted up, you get to play princesses and witches, and you sing. The joy alone of that can really carry a lot.

I think acting is a gift.