Like any art, what is the most imprisoning thing is also the most delivering thing. If an actor knows he only has 12 syllables in a line, the challenge is, 'How can I interpret the meaning and contain it without going one syllable over?'
Maybe with your emotions and your feelings, someone else can say it in a different way than you would, which brings new life to the way you might sing it.
Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say.
When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.
Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.
My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did that.
Directing is an act of interpretation.
As an actor, you try to put a little bit of yourself in everything you do.
A great many quite good plays could be performed with rhythmic howls in the place of dialogue and lose almost nothing by the change.
Songwriting helps me sort out my personal problems. With acting, you're just a tool for someone's ideas.
I can't stand interpretation. I think it's one of the great scourges of the theater. I just think, 'Don't get in the way of the play.'
The actors bring their own stuff and thoughts, and most of the time, I don't want to know what they are. It allows me to have more distance and observe what they're doing without having the knowledge of what they have in their minds, so I can see clearly how that feels to me.
Playing live is great, but it's not a creative thing, really. It's a reproductive thing.
People know that they're going to see something which is entertaining but challenging as well because of the form it's in. It's dance theatre and it requires you to use your imagination - it's not straight forward.
As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.
I started out as a singer and a musician, and I was taught that your job is just to get out of the way of Brahms or Arthur Miller or Shakespeare and convey the brilliance that they created.
But I can't say that I didn't like John Hammond's performances often better than the originals.
Sometimes directors may not give you words, you know? They may not talk at all! You've just got to use your radar to figure out how you can get to the center and not lose yourself, but still be directed at the same time.
You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.
Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext.
Dramatic reading and writing for kids can open a window to individuality and to expression that nothing else does, because all of a sudden the pressure is off and they just bring themselves to the table.
