Theatrical Training Quotes

In 1954 I was on Broadway for five months in 'The Matchmaker' and went once a week to the classes of Uta Hagen, a theatrical guru whose teaching in retrospect illuminated the whole of my training at the Old Vic.

As Michael (Chekhov)'s pupil, I learned more about acting. I learned psychology, history, and the good manners of art - taste.

The funny thing is, because I was doing a lot of theater when I was a kid, and a lot of that was musical theater, as I got older I became more interested in acting as a separate entity and music as a separate entity, like songwriting and production and recording and playing music.

I was never not in a show from ages 11 until 18. It was a great creative atmosphere but also a professional kind of atmosphere. When I finally went into the professional world, I felt ready. I was prepared for work.

Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.

I really like to work with theater actors. Theater actors tend to do lots of independent movies, and those are the actors that I like.

I went to drama college in England - the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London. I was there for not quite two years, then I got Star Wars.

I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey.

I was never an actress -- none of us kids at Metro were. We were just good to look at.

In Yale they convinced me I had no talent, even though I was always working. They cast me mostly as prostitutes and old women, and I stayed because I loved the writers. I loved Chris Durang and Wendy Wasserstein. I was always doing their work in the Yale Cabaret.

At NSD, I had an amazing experience learning everything from stagecraft to western drama and Shakespeare, Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekov.

Theater is like going to the gym for actors.

The career I chose was a drama major in college, at Yale, when I played a 90-year-old woman. One of my most celebrated roles. Then I played a really fat person. I played a lot of different things. That's how I thought I loved to wrangle my talent, my need to express myself. I like to do it that way.

Coming from a background of being onstage, you're onstage for two and a half hours and you're in it for the whole time no matter what you're doing. Even if you don't have a line, you have to stay in it.

I never went to drama school, so that was more like I was getting away with it.

I went to college and stage school, and thought about acting, but... I just don't like actors very much! They're not as fun as musicians.

Everybody has auditioned and failed. You learn from that. It's how you learn your craft.

My first acting lessons were Shakespeare. The first time I ever started working with a coach was doing scenes from 'Measure for Measure,' which were tough dramatic scenes. And then 'Taming of the Shrew,' which required comedic timing. And that's the kind of stuff I love.

I did so much theater, where everybody I worked with was so much better than me, that I just sort of learned.

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.

Acting is a specific discipline. Just because you can sing doesn't mean you have the sensitivities of being an actor.

I spent all of my childhood at a performance art camp. Putting on plays, it was more like commedia dell'arte. It wasn't career-oriented in any way. It was more fun and therapeutic, so I never really thought of it as something I would end up doing. I was more convinced I was going to be a painter.

My father was a director, and he used to always tell me, "You should be an actress." When I was 17, he gave me a job so that I'd be in the union.

When I first started getting into acting, I was doing improv in acting class, and I had done a serious monologue and everyone was cracking up laughing and I went to the drama teacher and said I don't want to be the class clown anymore, I want to do serious work, too, and they loved that, and so I started mixing in drama.

Drama school is a pretty intense experience, and I think it changes who you are.