Tommy Lee Jones Quotes

I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.

I always wanted to act. To be with my friends. To share something with the audience about the human condition.

I've done theater most of my career, and I get to see the reaction of the audience right after the show.

My favorite moments are the moments everyone cries over. I see people in the audience crying, and I go, 'I did that, too. I don't just do the jokes. I also do the cries.' Jokes and cries, jokes and cries. That's all I'm here for, people.

I enjoy being on stage with other artists. I have a chance to watch and see people responding to the other artists songs. I get to see how people are affected by the music.

I became an actress to provoke people and move people and to tell the stories.

Plays have a celebratory nature that no other form has. Theater always meant celebration, a birthday, a reward for good grades. I felt at home in a theater. I loved being part of an audience. All the rules - the audience has to see the play on a certain date at a certain time in a certain place in a certain seat.

'Nicholas Nickleby' was the best example, where 43 people could make an audience of 1,500 look at a fingernail at any given moment. It was so controlled, and yet it was a group of disparate individuals. It was a happy, constructive time, and it seemed to be an active discussion of what makes the theater work.

Good actors can tell you more about your play than 1,000 hours alone at your desk.

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

I love theater. To have the people onstage right there, to be working in concert with other artists, this is a like a school of fish moving together.

Every time I go to the theater, there's something about the atmosphere, seeing something unfold live in front of an audience, that you can't get out of your system.

I believe in things that move people, if the audience isn't deeply caught up and moved to either laughter or tears then I don't think it is theater.

Feelings are universal, and if an actor's doing his job, I think he's making people sit there, and if it's in a movie or a theatre, going 'Hmm, yeah, I know that... I know that.'

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too.

What I like about theater is its team work. Theater is also all-time creativity.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.

I love the experience the theater creates for a community of people.

I get very excited when I go to a show - there are all these people who don't know each another who've come together to celebrate this amazing ritual. The making of community that theater provides is quite profound.

There's something about being in a house with an audience, and having that immediate feedback. I started acting because of that energy; it's what feeds me on stage and informs my choices.

I have to feel the audience. I enjoy that feeling of community. There's something sort of spiritual about it in a lot of ways. It's like we're all doing this together.

You know, it's recently come into focus for me why I want to be an actor: It's because of the connection I feel to people.

Theater is exciting because it is collaborative, but it is also exhausting for the same reason.