Courtney B. Vance Quotes

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

It's fun finding your way to the performance instead of coming in and hoping to God you're impressing the director - and hoping you're delivering the lines right with no treatment beforehand.

Giving auditions is a great exercise. They will provide you with a script, and you prepare in 10 minutes. And you perform in front of 100 other people.

I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.

It's very good for me to remember what actors go through.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

In a drama, you don't make a fool of yourself.

All the things you can do to prepare for a role that free you, in the moment, are great. You have this muscle memory for things. You don't have to act it as much, once you've done it enough.

I've done a lot of stage in my life, but I never had to dominate a stage for three hours.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You're on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

I have, I think to do a play a year is very good if you can afford the time and the energy because it's difficult to do, it's really the actors medium of course, because you're really out there and nobody's yelling cut so, yeah I have.

The process of doing plays will make you an actor.

Being on stage a lot is quite physical.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance, a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

Acting is a sport, like a game of tennis, and you and your opponent take turns setting the level of play.

Can I be a leading man? I don't believe myself to be; I don't think that I am, but I'm in this place as a performer where I think about how to make things smaller, more subtle.

From the time I was five years old, theater was all I knew. I did community theater; I went to theater school. It's like going to the gym as an actor: every single night, you have to recreate the illusion of the first time, so you really have to listen and connect and stay in the moment for an hour and a half - with no breaks.

I'm a lazy actor, lazier than you would think. I don't usually do a lot of research.

During theatre, I had never faced problems with my lines and I was very proud of myself.

Once you are in the character, you should let your inner actor take over you.

It is important for an actor to learn how to face a live audience.

I used to do theatre in school and college. When I started working on television, only the camera was new. Theatre experience really helps one lose inhibitions.

Acting in a scene is easy.

All that acting and all that stuff and emoting and crap will come after you know what you're doing. So when you get - when I get on stage, I don't have to think about it.