Theatrical Education Quotes

I asked a girl who came from America to England, when I was only English, and she admitted she had been to a drama school. And I said, "What did they teach you?" And she said, "They taught me to be a candle burning in an empty room." I'm happy to say she was laughing while she said it, but she meant it. I've never learned to be a candle burning in an empty room. So I go on the screen, and I say whatever I'm told to say.

I've taken [acting] class with Larry Moss, who's more kind of in the theater world, so he's really educated me about playwrights.

The ultimate aim of the training is to create an actor who can be responsible for his artistic development and achievement.

I still go to acting class. I love the craft. It's just so much fun for me, and I'm always a student.

Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.

Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.

I loved getting classical training in terms of acting. I would've stayed in acting school for the rest of my life if I could have. It was this amazing period of my life where everything was so safe.

There's nothing better than an educated actor - not only educated in his craft but educated in the world.

It was my dream for years... to train. Dominic [Cooper] went and he's doing alright. But some people don't go and do brilliantly. Although I think there are things I missed from not having trained. I think I'd be more confident on stage had I gone because I think it means you're equipped with better vocal training and things like that.

All the craft skills that I have, I feel like I developed and honed in drama school. It's the most important thing for me.

Drama school introduced me to a world I had no idea about. I wasn't brought up in a literary household at all.

My background is musical theater. I have a BFA from the University of Florida.

A solid theatrical education can only improve a screen performance. It gives you a fuller capacity to read a script and understand a character, for one thing. It's important to alternate between the two activities.

From university, I tried to get into the profession almost immediately, and just got kind of kicked back in London, by lots of people saying, "Well, you know, we'll need to see you in something. And the easiest way for you to get seen in something is drama school. That is the best way to get an agent."

I haven't done any training. I come from a family of actors, but I haven't done any training.

I think working on Shakespeare was a big part of my time at drama school. I'm so glad that I got to know Shakespeare and got a chance to play great parts in Shakespeare, because it really teaches you - or taught me, anyway - everything.

I enjoy working with writers and their scripts. It's very exciting to me. Eventually I would like to produce, direct and act onstage, but it's not a heavy pressure. When I do it, I want to do it well. I'm just educating myself with writers and scripts, because I didn't read a lot of books when I was growing up.

A lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well.

Theater was such a different school of acting. But it really is a foundation of everything. It's where it all started! And I feel like I learned so much.

I regret not having enough training, I trained for a year at The Royal Court, but I very quickly went off to do films and television.

They have a good ethos at Guildhall in that they basically throw loads of different things at you. Their theory is that after you leave, if you use 10 of those 100 things, that's great. The other 90, you might not agree with or might not work for you as an actor. But if you can find 10 that work for you, then ultimately you leave as a better actor.