Performance Preparation Quotes

As actors, you don't actually need to know the future of the character. You just need to know the backgrounds.

I've learnt how to develop routines. To play with each bit. To enjoy expanding on it. To get used to the stage being mine.

People may know me from films, but theater is my first love. I did about 35 plays before I even landed my first screen role. I'm very comfortable on stage, and theater is not something you can just wing.

If I focus solely on developing new material, then I can get a new 45 minute to an hour in about six months. Then I'll work on it and work on it and can make it killer within another six months or so.

I'm not a method actor per se, but if I'm playing a character that, at its core of its persona, has experiences I don't have, I try to search out and get firsthand experiences of similar sorts so I have something to fantasize about.

Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.

When it comes to performance, I don't like to prepare at all if I don't have to.

Live performance is everything. First of all, I have terrible stage fright. But beyond that, once the music starts, it's OK.

The way I prepare is through script analysts and back story. I create back story for a character based on script analysts, filling in as many details as possible. I also do a lot of research.

Over the years, I was lucky; right from the beginning, I studied with a lady who had a lot of... she was a classical singer, and of course, they're a little bit more into, you know, preserving the voice, making sure your instrument is ready to perform.

I heard about 'GLOW,' but I found out a little too late. I kind of made a run of getting a role training the actresses to show them how to wrestle.

I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.

My thing has always been preparation. When I was a performer on the roster as one of the guys on a weekly, full-time schedule, I was always prepared.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

I do build my own backstory as an actor. It's important to know where your characters have come from in order to know where they're going - in order to exist in that state of being.

On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say.

We're very much perfectionists, so when we're putting on a huge show and want to play to the best of ability, we rehearse intensely. And I have a guitar pretty much in my hand for at least five hours before doing a show. I'm just noodling and mucking around and working on some of the songs here and there.

In terms of watching other directors, it's more like I go on set now, and I'm prepared, as an actor, and ready to give them everything, but at the same time, you observe how everybody else does it because there's always something to learn.

You cannot enter a studio and just start crooning before the mike. It is essential to understand the mind of the composer, mood of the song, and meter of the tune.

Actors need to know why they're saying what they're saying, more than just learning their lines.

The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can't just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.

What I mostly do is take the script, analyse the hell out of it, see what's in there, see what kind of person I'm dealing with, and then forget I'm playing a father and just play a person who exemplifies all those things.

If I had to name one thing that probably causes more conflict within the band, it's probably the fact that I'm the girl, and it takes much longer with hair and makeup and wardrobe. But they've gotten used to it. It's one of those things I think they realize that when they say she'll be ready in 10 minutes, it normally means 15 or 20.