Javier Camara Quotes

I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value.

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting.

I think in any form of acting, you're always well served if you've done theater.

Juilliard is wonderful in that they don't pick just one way of working. They give you a palette. There is method acting. There is a lot of attention to Shakespeare and verse.

Well, all I can say is thank goodness I had 15 years of theater before ever I did film roles. You build technique that you can rely on.

I studied at Guildhall and did the acting course, but because I could sing a bit, I kept being cast in musicals.

I thought theater people wouldn't see me if I hadn't trained. I didn't want to just be the Brideshead guy, to spend the rest of my life wearing waistcoats. I got the chance to try everything. Not just Romeos, but pimps and grandfathers and even one role as a woman in a Naomi Wallace play called Slaughter City.

For me, there's nothing more valuable as an actor, or better way to learn, than getting to perform in front of a live audience, no matter where you are. Whether it's on Broadway, in Florida, or doing a tour.

If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.

I understudied Colm Feore quite a bit in '85 and '86 - 'Persephone' and 'The Boys from Syracuse,' too - and that was great, great training for me. He was and he is an amazing theatre actor.

I'm more an actor who can dance and sing if I absolutely have to. I studied theatre in college, but I studied drama, but I don't have that Broadway voice, and I'm not a trained dancer or anything like that. I identify mostly as an actor first and foremost.

I just feel lucky to have had my training at Juilliard. Even though it is a 'classical' training programme, they also prepare you for all mediums. They don't teach specific techniques or subscribe to a specific school of thought about acting.

To get on a show where you're acting day in and day out for many, many hours - 15-16 hours sometimes - it hones your endurance, your ability to memorize, your ability to follow your instincts, because you don't have time to fret about your choices afterward.

Coming from documentaries, my biggest challenge was to understand actors' psychologies. American actors take it all very seriously; British actors don't enter into all this methody way of doing things.

Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her.

I do think - I always tell that to young people - go to college, do theater, work with an audience. Don't try to learn how to act in front of millions and millions of people. Don't make that your first ambition, to be on a sitcom or get into the movies. Learn who you are as an actor, and the best way to do that is to do it in front of an audience.

I've played some great ladies. Mame. Agnes Gooch in 'Mame,' when I started out in the '60s... it's a beautiful role.

My favorite acting books are Stella Adler's 'The Art of Acting' and 'Sanford Meisner on Acting.'

I've done a bunch of Broadway, so I'm a theater nerd when I come to New York.

I love the way we do theatre in London: I love the fact that everybody is trained.

At 17, I became a member of the Boston Repertory Theatre. I had an opportunity pretty quickly and performed with the theater for six years.

Doing theater makes you feel like a real actor.

My first show in high school was 'The Music Man.' I was a junior. I played Harold Hill. I did the role at the University of Miami, too. I do love that musical. To do it in high school and college and then to do it professionally - I mean, come on!

I know I'm an opera singer, but we're actors, too.

I was really an actor before I knew I could sing. And I just put the two together and went to musical theater school. But acting is a huge passion of mine, so it doesn't matter which medium as long as I have the opportunity to grow and to learn from a piece of work and work with good people, and on a very good-quality project.