Bill Condon Quotes

I like to improvise.

With a play, for me, there's no time to sit back on it. You're living on your instincts. And every night there are subtle changes and adjustments, because what's in front of you is a living, breathing audience.

With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.

I don't like improv at all. It terrifies me. I like to know exactly what I'm going to say. Being surprised does make me a better actor. Anytime I'm afraid of something that makes me rise to the occasion, it scares me, but it's what makes great actors - being in the moment.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that. I just started doin' it in front of an audience and had to deliver.

Sometimes with films you have a freedom to be able to, Okay, we got that take so let's try another one where suddenly I'll say this, or you'll get to improv. You can't do that with stage. We have to make it new every time, and also within the structured settings.

Sometimes you don't want to get married too much to a lot of rehearsing, I feel, when it comes to film, because there's so many technicalities. So if I'm in my head, I've gotten settled on something, I'm gonna have to change it if I get there and something was set that's completely different.

Boxing is a lot of preparation and then improvising, so there are parallels to being an actor.

When I rehearse, it ends up doing more harm than good. I think I work a little bit better when it's right off the bat. Mostly, I try to wrap my head around a role as much as I can without rehearsing and then kind of make it as fresh as possible on the day.

You can repeat things because it's on a set and there are actors. But if it's a great moment and you don't capture it, it's rare to get that moment again.

With 'Silver Linings,' I didn't feel - I was thinking of certain things, but I just said, 'Let me go with it.' You have to know what you're doing, where you're going with the scenes, and I put a lot of work into that. But when you're out there, at the same time you gotta be ready for anything.

Doing a play, you have a little bit more time, obviously. You rehearse for a month before you get up in front of people. It's a totally different energy. With film, TV, you want to try to capture lightning-in-a-bottle moments. I don't try to rehearse as much with that stuff, because you want those sparks of something to come out, if they do.

You get a sense of how the show works and then let your personality take over.

I research every part thoroughly. I talk it out with my actor friends, but then I throw it all away when I get to the set. You have to be spontaneous.

Many times I'll improvise it, which isn't done a lot in movies or commercials. But a lot of my commercials are improvised.

I love an actor who comes in, ready to work. It's like a good tennis player. They hit the ball where you don't expect it, and it's great.

I'm not one of those actresses that asks what's going to happen. I've never been. I just take the scripts, and I see what's given to me, and I go with it that way.

I have always felt that doing too much of homework makes the performance look plastic. I don't even watch the monitor after I finish my scene because I can't reprise it. I just go with the flow.

For me, you have to do as much work as you can beforehand and, once you get on stage or set, throw it out the window because you need to be collaborative. You shouldn't have too many ideas about where it goes before you get into the room with the director and other actors.

As an actor, I go with the flow.

I grew up in the theater, and you can't improvise Shakespeare and Ibsen. You have to speak the language. But obviously, in a contemporary film, there's often room for improvisation and spontaneous things that happen. As long as I know what I'm trying to achieve in the scene, and when something comes up, I know that the response is genuine, I'm comfortable. That's really how I build everything.

You learn your lines as well as you can and you go in there and go with whatever is thrown at you. Sometimes you don't know whether or not they're going to break the scene up, so you don't have to do it all at one time.

I'm not a guy that loves a lot of rehearsal, but it depends. It depends what it would be.

Sometimes I do love to rehearse, but I always switch it up depending on whom I'm working with.

When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.