Performance Commitment Quotes

Meryl Streep doesn't care how she looks. She just surrenders to the truth of the character. Not everybody has the ability to do that. They look good and they can pretend to be that person, it's not the same as being that person. And there are not many actors who will surrender to that.

Give me meaty roles, and I'll sink my teeth into them!

I never want to give up the stage.

I've asked to go back into theaters and smaller venues because to me, in smaller venues I can really demonstrate my commitment to quality. Theaters are great containers for music.

As an actor, you never really set out to be a stand-out character. You just want to do justice to the story and enjoy playing it, and find all the different nooks and crannies of who someone is. For each part that you get, they're all special and you just try to give everything you can to each one. I don't know whether they're going to be stand out in that way or not factors into my work. They all stand out for me.

If there's one big thing you can take from Amy Poehler as a performer, it's committing, full on.

Some people just come to a rally to see the stars. But some do take us seriously. They have been watching us on the screen and they know the conviction that goes into our acting.

To me that's part of my working day, and I would never refuse a job where I'm under several hours of makeup, because as an actor, I enjoy performing. It's about the creation of the character and the art to me, not about being comfortable and how long it all takes.

There's nothing I hate more than having to cancel shows. In 36 years of performing, I think I've only canceled six times.

When you have an engagement, at least in my world, the world that I create for myself, an engagement doesn't begin when you hit the stage and end when you leave the stage. It begins when you hit the city limits, and it ends when you leave the city limits.

It took me a while to get over 'Highway'. I started living the character of 'Veera' very closely. I don't think I would be able to give so much to a character the way I did with her.

I always perform live. I've even received a cortisone injection when I was losing my voice before a big gig so I could fulfill my obligation to the promoter. I felt it the days following after the gig in my throat, but it was nice to know I didn't let anyone down. The show must go on.

I just really enjoyed all that kind of responsibility, I loved the fact that many people cared. I was doing 4 hours of boxing, 2 hours of weights, an hours of accent and dialect training, I just enjoyed having to do all that for this character [ Vinnie Paz in Bleed for This].

Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is.

I am so picky about what films I get myself into because it's such an explosion of energy and commitment once you get in there, you destroy your life until you deliver these films. I never want to be in the position of making films that won't be a great use of 90 minutes of someone's life.

It was a very hard play [Woman Under the Influence] to do every night. And John Cassavetes said, "Don't worry. Don't even think about it, you're right. I hadn't thought of that." He said, "Just forget it."

For some people, fame kills it and becomes more important than the music or the performance. But for me fame is like rocket fuel. The more my fans like what I'm doing, the more I want to give back to them. And my passion is so strong I can't sleep - I haven'tslept for three days.

I read the script. If I like it, I would do anything I am asked to.

When you play a lead role, you're in pretty much every scene. It's incredibly tiring. You really have to disappear into the film because you have no time to do anything else. You are either awake and playing the character, or you are trying to catch up on sleep.

When I finish a film, I want to feel drained. I want to feel like I couldn't have possibly done any more to service a character and a story.

The theater commitment is hard, especially in conjunction with a television commitment. That's a big, long commitment.

As I laid in the hospital bed I started thinking that I had a show to do. I was hoping the Doctor would put me together so I could do the show.

If you're onstage thinking about what you're going to eat when you get offstage, it's time to finish.

I did a film a few years ago where I gained a lot of weight for it. I was happy to do that because it was called for in the script.

The physical element of a role is something I'm super familiar with, and I love it. I've definitely made the transition into acting over doubling, just because I needed to make it clear to myself, so that I fully committed.