Tommy Mottola Quotes

It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with.

The big secret in acting is listening to people.

The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking.

Acting to me is always reacting.

Well, what is acting but the study of human behavior? And that's so fascinating to me.

Acting is about listening, and that's something that took me awhile. You almost don't have to learn your lines, if you listen to what they're saying and move it along.

I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.

The art of acting is to pitch good. You do the pitching and hope that the other person catches the ball and does some good pitching back to you.

You need to become a good listener. As you're working, you hear someone else's lines and how you absorb them becomes your acting.

Unfortunately, when you're an actor you have to act. It's not like you can sit in your living room, your bedroom, your study or whatever and act with yourself. It requires having somebody to respond to.

One of the most important things for an actor is to observe humanity.

If you're working opposite an actor who can act, then all you have to do is listen and respond.

Acting is reacting. That's when acting is great - when you say something, somebody said something, they make a face, they pose, they use something physical, then you react to that, then they react to you.

If I read something and respond to the role, that's what happens, and if those happen to be a few comedies in a row, or not, so be it.

I often have the feeling that acting is really not difficult, because all I do is I just listen. I just listen. I just listen to what there is. And if there's nothing, then I listen to nothing. If there's a chair, and it's empty, I listen to an empty chair, and I will respond to it.

For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

The thing I noticed about Jack was when we did a reading of the script, just to warm up.

Acting is reacting. You can't react if you're not paying attention, if you're not listening.

With theater, you have to really be able to listen and to respond to other people on stage. You're all constantly on your toes. And then with film and television, you can get a second take and things like that.

I really love the process, with stage, of rehearsal, you get to create a character, and you have a beginning, a middle, and an end of story. And in television, you don't.

I've never tried to learn the art of acting. I have been in the business for years but I still can't tell what acting is or how it's done.