Katharine Cornell Quotes

I don't really feel any different when I get up on stage.

I know two kinds of audiences only - one coughing, and one not coughing.

I'm lucky to have worked in theater all over the world, but there's something magical about Broadway. The audiences are smart, they're educated. They go in ready and they're up for it, they're up for the party. It's a whole different atmosphere.

The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before.

Usually, there's nothing being thrown toward the stage or at me. Then I feel pretty good about it.

Playing in front of an audience was just such a turn-on for me, and you have 200 people in the audience and it's like doing live theater. And filming something that goes to millions of people several weeks later, it's an interesting dynamic.

I've always been obsessed with being on stage and putting shows together.

I'm ashamed to say it, but I watch YouTube videos of our live shows, wondering if it actually sounded the way it sounded when I was playing it, and the consistent thing I see is that you can feel the anxiety and the tension and it's over-aggressive a lot of the time.

If it's a 50-seat theater, I am neurotic about whether I'm doing an honest performance. Sometimes I walk away happy enough with it. You know, it can always be better, but sometimes I'll walk away distraught, feeling like I missed the pulse of the character that evening.

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

Life is boring. The weather is boring. Actors must not be boring.

There are two kinds of audiences. There's the ones who were in the theaters, and the ones who are outside and we want them to come inside the theater. And, it's not the same.

I've had shows where you think, "Is this going well? I can't tell," and then you say goodnight and you get this ovation. They're sorta like a theater audience. I've learned that much; that they're not always going to be doing backflips - but I'll never figure it out. Because sometimes you walk up there, and they're so excited, and then other times, it's just... But sometimes an audience is bad, and you can tell them they're bad, and that sort of breaks the ice a bit.

I think it's a room full of insecure actors, which is ultimately very comforting.

My stage fright gets worse at every performance. During the overture I hope for a theater fire, typhoon, revolution in the Pentagon.

My goal for Actress is to have it play more traditional theaters.

You cannot begin to imagine the shock I had when I came down on the floor for the first time. First of all, there's this whole thing about playing sitcom comedy. I didn't want to do the sitcom thing, but I didn't know what else to do. I went slowly. We went through the week of rehearsal, then we got on the floor with the cameras, which I'm used to because of my experience in the old days. Then came camera day, with an audience, and it was stunning, enthralling, exciting and chaotic. I had never experienced anything like that before, as an actor. I was part minstrel, part actor.

I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, paralyzed by its curious glances, struck dumb by all those strange faces.

Viola [Davis] is one of the great actors of her generation. She has one of these moments in the theater that I don't even know how to describe.

My ability has always been to walk out on the stage and see the audience and figure out what they wanna hear.

Performing my show is something I constantly think about.

I've had a very full career in the theater, on stage, in films and on television.

Whoever writes a bad review, I put their name on a list, and they're going to get taken care of one day down the road. Otherwise, I don't let it bother me. The truth is, these are review-proof movies. The audiences are going to see it. My audience, our audience, isn't reading Esquire magazine to see if my movie is good or not. They just want to laugh, to be entertained, and lose themselves.

It's a little bit odd. The first time you do the play, you kind of throw yourself into it, trying to get the most out of all the individual moments. Then, a few hours later, you're still there, wondering what you could possibly do differently than what you just did a couple hours ago.

I was always ambitious. I always wanted to be more than I was....I always wanted to be a movie actor.