Jason Robards Quotes

For me, when I did 'Thor,' they changed my lines at the last minute, and then I had to speak with an English accent - and it was horrifying. I was in front of a crew of 250 people on my first day - never happened to me before.

I lack confidence as an actor.

I had panic attacks during rehearsal. There were times when I really thought I wasn't going to be able to do it.

I don't really get nervous for auditions, because I just see them as mini acting classes. There's no need to have an attachment to the outcome because it's out of your hands after that.

I get extremely nervous before performances. I pray and try to look at it as, 'I'll go out there and have fun,' but it's very nerve-wracking for me. I don't think that will ever change.

If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?

I forgot how scary plays are. The audience is so much a part of the night - I know that a lot of it is trying to shut that out and just do your own thing.

I get horrified when I have to do table reads with the whole cast, because there's a lot of stuttering coming from me, so I have to do a lot of prep.

I was living in New York City and flat broke. My next door neighbor was an actor and he always seemed to be having more fun than I was. He convinced me to give acting a shot, but because of my shyness I was sure it would be a lost cause.

I'm sure acting is a deeply neurotic thing to do.

If you don't have a certain amount of stage fright, then it's not going to be that interesting. It's not going to have the inner vibration. I think screen work needs inner vibration.

I was discouraged at drama school, along with most of my peers.

I'm always nervous. A classy comedian is full of self-doubt disguised with an air of false confidence. If there isn't self-doubt, you seem aggressive.

Most actors hate the feeling of being handled.

I suffer from a more complex, persistent fear. It manifests itself in nerves, and on film the camera sees even the tiniest evidence of this. So you have to learn that when the director calls 'Action,' you don't go to this place of tension, but somehow you become free.

There's something scary about acting always, because basically you do all this work in a vacuum, and then suddenly there's a lot of money spent making a film, and there's suddenly a camera here, going, 'Right? What are you gonna do?'

I used to cry on the way to auditions.

I don't know if anyone knows if they're ever any good, but I went to drama school in Scotland, in a classical acting course, and my first year, I remember one of my tutors telling me that I couldn't act, and I should give up and all this sort of thing, and then, they cast me as Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet.'

I think I'm always nervous, even if I play not on the center court.

While I'm acting, I'm a professional, and then I don't break into cold sweat for whatsoever reason.

To be honest, I am scared of acting, and moreover, I want to be perfect on the musical stage first.

Figure out a way to get back onstage because once you do it a few times you'll get over it. Unless it's like a clinical thing. I don't know about clinical like stage fright, that might be worse than what I'm talking about. But if it's normal stage fright get over it.

The more comfortable you are, the more confident you are - in how you say your lines or how you perform in a certain scene - because you're working with great people who will watch over you and won't let you down.

I hated singing, I hated being on stage; I hated being in the Cranberries. I was constantly crying. I was going insane. I wanted to be a shopkeeper, a hairdresser, anything. I was so desperate to have a reality, friends, a regular, boring life. I missed that.

I really struggled with doing nine-to-five and just wanted to do something where it felt like I was in charge and I was doing something creative. I imagine if the first gig had gone badly I'd never have done it again. I imagine there's hundreds of people who could have been really great comedians and just had a bad first gig.