Martin McDonagh Quotes

Good actors are a dime a dozen, but I want actors that are gonna be part of my team and collaborative.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you've got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky's the limit.

A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you're going to say is.

In my experience in series TV, if you have a good crew and a great cast, it's going to be a great group - similar to the theater where it's a bunch of people who are really talented and go to work each day and challenge each other, and if you are lucky enough to get a hit then it's five or six or seven years of this kind of work.

Good actors can tell you more about your play than 1,000 hours alone at your desk.

To do a comedy team, it requires so much extracurricular stuff, so much compromise, so much intuitiveness to know what the other guy is doing. That's why it's so hard to do it.

The art of acting is to pitch good. You do the pitching and hope that the other person catches the ball and does some good pitching back to you.

With acting, it's like you form chemistry with different people in different ways, so it's really added even more fun to work, you know?

I'm an actor's director. I love it when talented actors can bring characters to life.

I can speak to actors in their terms. Knowing I was an actor, they relax. You can have the best shot in the world - but, at the center of it, you still need a good performance.

As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.

Anyone who has been given the gift of being opposite an actor who gives and gives, it just makes you better.

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.

You work with stand-up comedians or you work with somebody in theater, you work with somebody from 'Star Search' or 'Survivor' or a kid, it constantly changes how you play with people.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

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

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way.

I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room.

There's only so much you can do until you get on set and see the aesthetics of what you're dealing with. Then you see what the other players are giving to you. It's all about the transfer of energy between different actors.

Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.

All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.

When it comes to casting, I've been so lucky. I've worked with unbelievable actors who make me look better than I am and take the written word and make it honest.

Chemistry is not anything an executive producer or writer can orchestrate or plan; you just hope for it.

There are no bad actors. There are only bad directors who cannot make their actors act.

Wu-Tang has only done, like, three rehearsals throughout our whole career.