J. K. Simmons Quotes

If acting with other people is in your plans, then you need to learn how to work with other people to build a comedic premise.

Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them.

It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.

I just love the process of working with other actors.

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way.

Every time you go in to make a record with the same group of musicians, the communication gets better and better. You've got that joint experience, and you learn with every single one that you have on top of that.

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.

To do a comedy team, it requires so much extracurricular stuff, so much compromise, so much intuitiveness to know what the other guy is doing. That's why it's so hard to do it.

It's the most amazing cast, a dream cast. We laugh all the time.

I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense.

I love working with a cast and a group of people every day, which is different than recording because you're usually pretty isolated and alone. They serve as a good balance for each other.

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves.

I love working with the quartet. I have more freedom and flexibility.

The more and more I work with really great actors, the more it's about opening yourself up to what they bring.

What's great about collaborating is getting to work with wonderful people. That's what theatre is about: other people getting you to give your best, and getting everyone else's best out of them.

Hugh Wilson made it so real and he took us and it was almost when he was directing it, the way he would do it was funnier than the way we did it. And I just developed a regard for him that was unbelievable.

Anyone who has been given the gift of being opposite an actor who gives and gives, it just makes you better.

I totally love to act. I don't care if it's a musical, a comedy. I just like to work and interact with other people.

Acting is the work of two people - it's only possible when you have the complicity, the help, even the manipulation of a director.

To be able to work with actors who are doing such good work, not only makes it easier for you, but it makes you better.

I like doing a lot of research, and then you get there, you're in wardrobe, and then you're just reacting to what the other person is doing. The other actor is reacting to what you're doing, and it's this great back and forth. Because you've done all this research, you can use some of it or throw a lot of it out. You can get lost in it.

Once I'm on set, the only thing I'm really interested in is being in the room. Being present. And trusting that what I've done is sufficient, and I'm also trusting that I've also left room for magic.

As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.

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.