Sylvie Guillem Quotes

You still have to go perform; it doesn't matter what the tournament is.

I'd love to do well on a big weekend with people watching and cheering, of course. But it's not fair to create an expectation level before I know what is realistic. I want to finish as well as possible. Is that top 20? Top 15? Top 25? You just have to play it by ear.

There's nothing worse than looking out and seeing some guy with his arms crossed while you're singing your heart out on a new song, and he's going, 'When are they going to do 'Me and My Gang?''

It's so hard going into a performance that you've worked all week for and put so much time and effort into and when a silly little simple mistake that's never happened before happens, it can be really discouraging.

Every time an artiste goes on stage, he thinks 'I hope today goes well and I hope I give my best.' That is important - that little bit of nervousness or tension is what makes you perform better.

So much of performing is a mind game.

I was never that good on stage with live improv. I was much better on film or writing something and then thinking about it. I was too in my head when I was on stage.

I'm always so sick of myself after a show.

The hardest part of acting is not when I'm acting, It's when I'm not.

Even before my audition, there were several pages missing from my script because those bits were so unbelievably secret not even I was allowed to see them.

So much of performing is a mind game. You're memorizing thousands of notes, and if you start thinking about it in the wrong way, everything can blow up in your face.

Elektra has no control over the live show, at least.

I've always loved acting, even from when I was a child. But when I got on stage, I realised I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag. I was wild and full of unharnessed energy, but I was around all these seasoned performers like Rita Cullis. It was as if they were all in slow motion.

No one tells you what to do if you completely flop at the beginning of a performance.

I like when I have to act and direct; then, when you have to dub, you're by yourself in front of the wall, and I'm always scared that you're not good like when you are in real when you act.

When I come offstage, if I've done a bad show or had a bad night, the fact that everybody was standing at the end or three or four times during the show means nothing to me. I know I could have done a better show.

I love having the opportunity to perform, and I hate not being given the opportunity to perform.

I figured the people who liked the sort of thing I was doing would come see it. If it was only 200 then that was alright and if it was 2000 then that is alright as well. I wasn't really interested in the big numbers; I was just interested in some numbers.

When some people get parts, they feel they can now relax, but for me it was always the opposite. Sometimes before I do a movie or before I act out a scene, I may not sleep well the night before. If I don't know what the scene is about, I might get all worked up.

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

There's a pressure regardless of that to do a good show.

I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.

I don't think I'm sharp enough to not prepare and come on set and kill it.

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

Acting was a lot like football. When you're a DB and you're one on one with a receiver, you're going to dance. It's go-time in front of 100,000 people and everybody watching on TV. That's exactly how it is when a director says 'Action!' It's the same adrenaline rush, the same training process. I love it.