Albert Brooks Quotes

I have so much respect for people in the theater. You can't do 10 or 15 takes. It's all live. It's like life in motion.

Theater is the most challenging thing to do. It's just you out there with no rope. You can't call time out; you're on a roller coaster.

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.

In real life, I tend to yell at people a lot. Not because I'm bossy or mean, but because I'm frustrated.

I see myself as a performer and that applies to a Greek drama or a modern comedy.

I absolutely want to have a career where you make'em laugh and make'em cry. It's all theater.

Characterization is integral to the theatrical experience.

I played comedies and dramas.

And when I go to see plays, I marvel at how people can do that. I've done it all my life, but I still find it mystical.

Movies have takes. But plays are like life - you don't really get takes.

I would rather do a play because it's instantaneous. You go on the stage, and you know whether it's happening or not. Somebody asked me 'What is acting?' And I said, 'Acting is listening.' And if you ain't listening, nobody's listening.

We had all week to rehearse. An audience would come in at the end of the week and we'd our little show. Most of the ad- libbing happened during the week on the show.

In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that.

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.

Waiters are like actors waiting in the wings, bantering whenever we passed each other on the restaurant floor, shouting at each other backstage in the kitchen and winking and corpsing above the heads of our audience, the unsuspecting customers.

I love drama. I love to play an arc.

In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.

Acting is very immediate.

Theater is something that as a performance artist you have to hate.

I am obsessed with improv.

I like making people laugh, so drama was never a big leap for me.

Actors seem brave and unpredictable, but they're spontaneous as a tax return.

I think comedy's harder to pull off on the screen than on the stage, anyway. Tragedy is easier on the screen... oddly enough.

If you've ever been to a great clown show, there's always a moment where the clown goes into the house and fuses with the audience. There's something fantastic about the improv of it all.

The thing I love about being on stage is I can do whatever I want.