John Leeson Quotes

I'm lucky I don't make my living in front of the camera.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

It's not easy, acting.

You'll get, like, 10 pages of sides the night before, and you have to go in and just wing it. For someone like me, I came from the theater, and I don't like putting anything up in front of anybody until it's really, really ready, so it can be very frustrating.

Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

People ask me, 'How do you remember your lines?' That's nothing. That is the least of my concerns.

I went along to the audition and I had one page of lines, and I didn't think it went particularly well.

Acting was a lot like football. When you're a DB and you're one on one with a receiver, you're going to dance. It's go-time in front of 100,000 people and everybody watching on TV. That's exactly how it is when a director says 'Action!' It's the same adrenaline rush, the same training process. I love it.

When you're an actor you don't really know what you have to do until you see what you look like.

Actors know one thing: If you're left just with words, you're in trouble.

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.

I love film, but I feeling a bit needy about returning to the stage.

On film and TV sets, they let you sit down. Theater is like pushing a boulder up a hill each night. It's a fun boulder, but it's a boulder.

My uncle is an actor, my dad is a producer, so they asked me if I was interested, and I was like, 'How can someone act in front of so many people with lights and emote.'

I talked to friends who are actors and who do Shakespeare loads, and they all said 'learn it so that your family wants to clobber you, they're so bored.' You can never relax, that's the problem, because when you do, a bit of Shakespeare comes up to bite your cheeky behind. It just does, if you're not really focused on it.

Theatre's a whole different beast to film. It requires a lot more of you.

Not once in my life have I done theatre. Being on stage is not my thing.

When you are doing a show, it can get really dull. You are sitting so long while they set up the lights, then you say a couple of lines, then they tear down the lights again. At least stunts are something that uses your physical energy a great deal.

Theatre is the principal job of an actor. An actor's job is to tell a story to someone in a room. TV and film can be great and I really love doing it, but it is a different way of telling a story.

Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.

It has nothing to do with the emotional demands of a role; I've done comedies that are as draining to me as any drama.

Theater is a physical activity as much as anything. It's harder for me to learn the lines than it was 30 years ago. At the same time, I'll never quit working in the theater - until I can't memorize two lines back to back.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

As much as I hate auditioning - it's so hard and awkward - it's way better to walk out of that room and win a role because of what you did.

When they came to you for your line, you had to be ready and you had to get it in one.