Performance Honesty Quotes

I'm a rock drummer. I couldn't sit down and pretend to be a jazz drummer.

I've said before that the common perception that all good actors should be good liars is exactly the opposite; only bad actors lie when they act.

You wouldn't know how to perform a sketch that you don't find funny. You just couldn't do it.

I've been given lots of great advice, in my life. As an actor, just being as honest and as present as you can be.

And as a stand-up comic, that's the one thing I'm a little uncomfortable with. I'm not uncomfortable with sincerity in my regular life, but, like in terms of my product that I offer, I think that it's weird, because comics used to be way more sincere in the '80s.

I have too much respect for the characters I play to make them anything but as real as they can possibly be. I have a great deal of respect for all of them, otherwise I wouldn't do them. And I don't want to screw them by not portraying them honestly.

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.

Magic is a performance, and a performance should have an honesty, a relevance and a resonance if it is to be offered to spectators without insulting them.

I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget.

I think any actor should be aware of where they're starting to stretch into what's not truthful.

I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.

As a player, you know whether you are 100 percent or not.

There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.

In a theater you can fool everyone past the tenth row if you're good, but on the screen you can't really fool anyone for a second.