Ellen DeGeneres Quotes

Going on Letterman is like going off the high dive. It's exhilarating, but after a while it wasn't the kind of thrill I enjoyed.

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

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

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

It takes a lot of nerves to be a sports entertainer and to be in front of those big crowds.

Playing to a stadium is not for everyone because you are essentially gambling, big-time. You have to go all in on production. You can't hold back.

I do have a sense of fear every day going to work, but I think it's something that I like. I mean I do like the feeling of waking up on my own, having this moment of like: "Oh, f**k, I hope I can do this today!" Because it makes you realise that you're working with material or you're working with a director or you're working with a cast and they're keeping you on your toes.

I'd go onstage doing this thing, trying to fill this arena that I can't fill because I don't understand what this is. It's like you're given a job that's beyond you. And it's taken me years to realize what works in those big situations.

You get very comfortable doing the open mic circuit, turning up to the same places and playing to 20 people. In that situation, it won't matter if you aren't great on that night because no one will really remember who you are. Then suddenly you are doing rooms to 400 people and you have to up your game.

I don't get stage fright, I actually love the energy, I love the spontaneity, I love the adrenaline you get in front of a live audience, it actually really works for me.

I can't imagine anything more debilitating, anything more challenging, anything more thrilling than to get on a stage and do any kind of play. It is such a vulnerable place for any actor to be in.

A live performance is the same no matter what genre it is. Wrestling, rock 'n roll, hosting, acting - it's the same thing.

I love the challenge of show business. It keeps me on my toes.

When you are on stage, you don't see faces. The lights are in your eyes and you see just this black void out in front of you. And yet you know there is life out there, and you have to get your message across.

It's the adrenaline rush you only get from being in front of an audience. It's addictive.

Playing a stadium is a big adrenaline boost for me and I dig it. It keeps me on my toes and makes me revamp everything I'm doing and not get stagnant with how I approach every show, which is something I like.

The craziest thing I've probably done during a show is the balcony dive - it was pretty scary. I was like, 'This could result in an injury of mine,' but somehow I survived.

Playing in front of an audience was just such a turn-on for me, and you have 200 people in the audience and it's like doing live theater. And filming something that goes to millions of people several weeks later, it's an interesting dynamic.

I felt like I was flying without a net. But once I realized that the audience was my partner, I was flying a jet, because the people would allow me to develop the character on stage.

It's thrilling to be onstage and to not know, literally, what the next moment is going to bring. To just submit to the not-knowing-ness of it.

Certainly, being on stage is a rush.

Performing is the craziest workout for me, because I feel like, on the first day of tour, I'm going nuts. Halfway through, I'm just so tired but obviously you keep pushing yourself because you have fans watching you.

People root for me in such a way that when they come to a show, the experience of not knowing what's about to happen is a great thing.

The scariest thing is to go into a new situation for myself, and yet I have a job where I do that every few months, meet a hundred new people, and then have to perform in a very highly pressurized environment.

I loved playing sport at school in front of a crowd; I love being on stage in front of a big audience. I buzz off that.