Brian Stokes Mitchell Quotes

I try to inhabit each of the characters as fully as I can, however short-lived they are. But most of my show happens offstage.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

For 'A Little Night Music,' I did try to get little bit more beefed up for that because I thought that would help me carry myself around the stage in that character.

It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.

Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career.

An actor will use every piece of information at their disposal, or a good actor will.

I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before.

As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work.

Good acting comes from finding the essence of a character.

I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture.

An actor matures with experiences, and the more the emotions he/she has been through, the greater the intensity of performances.

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

I wouldn't be the same actor if I couldn't do theater.

I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.

There is probably some great acting that goes on in movies from people who have never been on a stage, but if you are in for the long haul, you'd be missing an enormous part of what being an actor is if you're not part of theater.

An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.

The job of an actor is the same in all of them, really. I mean, you're just creating a character that you hope people will believe, so it doesn't make that much of a difference really.

People often argue about this. Obviously one of the skills in performance is acting, and you can't expect every Romeo to really be in love with their Juliet!

As an actor, you wouldn't be able to play a character if you were worried about the reaction to what you're doing.

It's well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show.

A big moment for me was when I did a play that was a new adaptation of Dostojevskij's 'Crime and Punishment,' and I played Raskolnikov. It was actually the first thing I did when I got out of acting school.

I could not separate myself off stage from myself on stage, as so many actors can.

The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before.