Isabelle Huppert Quotes

I had always heard that theatre is for 'serious' actors but after actually having rehearsed day in and day out, I realize how challenging it is.

A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing.

Theater is a living creature. It takes a while to break in, like a new pair of shoes.

I suppose I'm really interested in theatre that provides an intensity of experience on another level.

The reason why I hate working in theatre is the tedium of memorisation. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are very difficult to find in everyday life.

In theater, the wellspring of the character comes from the doing of it, like a trial by fire, but in front of an audience.

I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul.

When theatre works, it's like nothing else, and when it doesn't, which is often, it's excruciating. It's perhaps not so excruciating when a novel goes wrong, but there is a kind of magic that can and should happen.

In my heart of hearts, I love theatre. It's the joy and terror of putting a play on, the creativity of it. It is infinitely harder than film and television and more tiring. Your performance is heightened in the way it isn't with film.

Theatre is like an actor's nectar, like how cinema is a director's medium.

Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.

In theatre there is a certain discipline that you have to follow, and you have to be experienced to be performing in front of a live audience. It is satisfying to me.

Theater is about life, not about television or movies.

When you're in a good play and a good production, you find that you're in something that has a life beyond you. You think, 'Oh my goodness, this play's alive.'

A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book; for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.

Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.

I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.

Why do you act? You act for an audience. In the theatre, you're in their presence. Film stars don't know what it is to have an audience.

There's a tremendous amount to be gained from being a performer, and being an artist, and being an actor.

As actors, you do have to be aware of your audience. You can't act in a vacuum, even if that audience isn't exactly present with you.

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having.

I don't look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That's really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.

As much as I can act, I don't have anything in me that yearns to be an actor - that sense of needing to be onstage, in costume, in character; that is utterly not interesting to me.

I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music.

I started in theater, and I love to go back to theater, just to have the experience and recharge my batteries, creatively.