Mike Colter Quotes

Between what I know I can do and want to achieve and what the audience expects, it's a lot of pressure, and it's always adding up.

As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.

The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.

If you're in a room and can be seen by actors, you need to understand that you can be felt by them.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

One of the hardest things to do in acting is to stop thinking about yourself and stop being self-conscious.

I still take it seriously, but once I go out there I think I've got more relaxed and I think it shows.

When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.

I rely on poetry or literature to keep me centered before I go onstage because it reminds me to be present.

That's what a lot of people say, especially in college, it looked like I'm lackadaisical out there, like I'm not really paying attention. If I'm always tense, I'm going to be overthinking the game. I try to just go with the flow.

Truthfully, you're not your audience, so all that self-consciousness and all that - it gets in the way of you actually just being the best thing in whatever thing that you're doing.

Sometimes I have to try to remind myself that I don't try to strike out hitters.

Being relaxed allowed me to fight the way I'm capable of fighting.

When I walk out on to the court and everyone is staring, sometimes I wonder how my legs will carry me out there. That's forgotten as soon as I start playing.

I know I perform best when I stay calm.

I'm not worried about any added pressure. I'm just worried about winning.

I love just being in the moment, and the most present I feel in my work is with theatre.

I just don't worry about any moment. I just worry about kicking well.

I can disappear into things very easily. But with acting, you have to be in the moment, and it gives me this incredibly fulfilling emotion: being really present.

When I started out as an actor I knew very little, which was probably a good thing. I was totally open. You don't judge yourself, you do it.

I actually have to pick and chose stuff that I know I'm going to bomb at.

Sometimes, when you're acting, you are so in the moment that you don't even remember what just happened.

I love to prepare if it's something that requires training. But I don't like to prepare the psychology too much.

If you can walk into a set and feel the reality of it, then immediately you're not having to work to bring yourself into the character.

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave... walking the plank... willingly... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.