Acting

"I used to be under the impression that in some kind of wanky, bullshit way, acting was like therapy: you get in and grapple with and exorcise all those demons inside of you. I don't believe that anymore. It's like a snow shaker. You shake the thing up, but it can't escape the glass. It can't get out. And it will settle until the next time you shake it up."

"Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is — and not so much a matter of being real. I mean, I would probably shock ."

"If I wasn't an actor, I think I'd have gone mad. You have to have extra voltage, some extra temperament to reach certain heights. Art is a little bit larger than life — it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness."

"When you’re doing voice work, and I said it right when I came in the door, I said, ‘I’m very obedient, and I will take direction.” Because the people who have written this, and the ones who have been envisioning the animation in their head, they have such a specific concept on what they want, that it’s good for me to say, “Give it to me. Give me every piece of direction you want. I’ll do it 10 different ways. Whatever you want.” It’s their vision, and I want to achieve that. If I get an idea while I’m doing a voice, I will offer it … “Hey, can we try this?” But it’s still up to them."

"I always tell myself that when you’re playing a character, pretend like they’re on trial and you’re giving the best witness of their life. You really need to think about every element of the character and represent them properly, as if they were a real person. You want to give 100 percent of what they’re worth and what they deserve as people."

"I would never say Don't try it to people, but in my seminars Ill play demo CDs of actors with whom I work; they don't get as much work as I do but are every bit as talented. They have agents, they're members of the Screen Actors Guild and they cant get a job. The point I'm trying to make to these folks is, you need to know that there are people that they've never heard of who are really good and are going to get the call before you do. They've already got representation and have been here for five or 10 years. People aren't aware of how much competition there is; there are things I never even get a shot at and I've won an Emmy. I've done a couple 1,000 half-hours of work on a couple of 100 series and I still have to audition and still don't get everything I read for. That's the two big things: Knowing there's a lot of competition and realizing that its not all just a matter of doing funny voices. Its also acting, the ability to sing and improvise in your characters."

"Sandra believes that every part you play is really part of you, a way for you to work out something in your past, something in your present. Since then, whenever I've chosen to do something, I've thought, "well, this has nothing to do with me." Then, sure enough, once I get into it and really start doing the work, and really start uncovering, I see that it's absolutely about something that's going on in my life. It isn't something obvious. It's usually pretty hidden. But there's always some sort of parallel to what's going on in my own life. And so, perhaps you can use it to bring closure, as a healing, a reconnection. I believe in that. I believe in that."

"The adults who should have been there to protect me were my parents, not you…[but] you can’t underestimate how in awe of you people like them can be. They didn’t want to be an annoyance or an inconvenience to anyone, and it must have been daunting to imagine holding up 100 people for your kid."

"I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as actors is empathy. Our job is to imagine what someone else's life is like. And if you can't do that in real life, if you can't do that as a human being, then good luck as an actor.... I just think it's an important thing to engage in the world. And it's just too easy not to in our society."

"Having to watch my own footage in the editing room completely changed me as an actor. I realised I was often doing the same thing every take, like I had picked the right way to do it and was just doing it over and over again. And, I was like: ‘Do something different!’ So I realised very late in the game how important it was to, like, really try different things."

"If I went to see Berma in a new play, it would not be easy for me to assess her art and her diction, since I should not be able to differentiate between a text which was not already familiar and what she added to it by her intonations and gestures, an addition which would seem to me to be embodied in the play itself; whereas the old plays, the classics which I knew by heart, presented themselves to me as vast and empty walls, reserved and made ready for my inspection, on which I should be able to appreciate without restriction the devices by which Berma would cover them, as with frescoes, with the perpetually fresh treasures of her inspiration."

"In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words we are continually changing the score."

"The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing."

"What goes on between an actor and the audience, at its best, is a dialogue. Sometimes you watch an actor on stage and somehow the performance isn’t getting through. The fourth wall is not only closed, it’s soundproofed. That’s because the actor isn’t connecting with the living and breathing human beings in the room with him. The audience feels the distance and they react accordingly. As an actor, you have to fire up your sensors at 100 percent all the time. You have to be in touch with all those heartbeats in the audience, connect with them. Sometimes during the Grinch performances, a child will shout out something. And I’ll turn right around, look them in the eye and respond to them."

"Acting is the most embarrassing business in the world. You never know when you're going to eat."

"Every now and then, when you're onstage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live."

"I accept or reject a film based on my conception of cinema. The definition of political cinema is one I don't agree with, because every film, every show, is typically political in nature. Political cinema is simply the brainchild of bad journalists. I try to make films that say something about the mechanisms of a society like ours, which correspond with some research of a shred of truth. For me, there is a need to understand the cinema as a means of mass communication, as well as the theater and television. Being an actor is a matter of choice that above all takes place at an existential level: either you express the conservative structures of society and are nothing more that a tool in the hands of power, or you address the progressive components of this society in an attempt to settle a revolutionary relation between art and life."

"I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do."

"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."

"I think that people don’t realize how challenging that voice work can be. Because when we invite them into the booth, we will be asking them to do multiple scenes. And so we will be asking them to go from one emotion, to another, to another very quickly, and they have to be very nimble. And they don’t have the benefit of a costume, or a set, or even another actor to bounce off of, they have to conjure all of it up. And because we work in animation, it is very physical often times: it’s you’re crashing through a window or you’re on a motorcycle or you’re in a room by yourself or you’re in a room with ten people, they have to imagine that while they are doing it, and I am always so impressed by the guys that can do it, and we do ask them to do long sessions. And the stamina is also something I am very impressed by."

"James Bond was established by Ian Fleming as a white character, played by white actors. Play 003 or 006, but you cannot be 007. A lot of people say we should be allowed to play everything. Don’t be ridiculous. If I say I want to play JFK, I should be laughed out of the room. Black men should stop trying to play roles created by whites. These roles are not written for black men. We have pens [to create] roles that no one else has established."

"Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time; Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers; "Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty."

"As good as a play."

"After acting for so many years, do you know who you are anymore? Because actors are liars basically, you lie about who you are to an audience."

"But as for all the rest, There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test. The Artist is a rare, rare breed. There were but two, forsooth, In all me time (the stage's prime!) and The Other One was Booth."

"I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my own just above the others; because in it I recognize the union and culmination of my own. To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal Drama."

"See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run; and yet they steal my thunder."

"Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks: Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks. The founder's you: the table is this place: The carvers we: the prologue is the grace. Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish, Though we're in Lent. I doubt you're still for flesh. Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough. Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepper-proof? Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew. Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join. Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin: Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste, Are water-gruel without salt or taste."

"Prologues precede the piece in mournful verse, As undertakers walk before the hearse."

"Prologues like compliments are loss of time; 'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme."

"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting,'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting."

"Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain."

"It's very hard! Oh, Dick, my boy, It's very hard one can't enjoy A little private spouting; But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives, Up comes our master, Bounce! and gives The tragic Muse a routing."

"And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop To the low mimic follies of a farce, As a grave matron would to dance with girls."

"The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live."

"Who teach the mind its proper face to scan, And hold the faithful mirror up to man."

"This many-headed monster."

"A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach."

"This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew."

"There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit."

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold— For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage."

"Your scene precariously subsists too long, On French translation and Italian song. Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage; Be justly warm'd with your own native rage."

"Tom Goodwin was an actor-man, Old Drury's pride and boast, In all the light and spritely parts, Especially the ghost."

"The play bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out."

"(The) play of limbs succeeds the play of wit."

"Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age!"

"The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task: And, when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's anything but gay."

"In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play, (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse."