Jason Robards Quotes

To me, performing means trying to do the most you can with the partner in front of you, with the story you're telling. There are actors who have carried me, who have brought me elsewhere or with them.

Action is drama. If we cannot make the audience laugh, smile or cry with us, we are not actors.

Acting is the most communicative thing I can imagine doing.

At the end of the day, acting is all about telling lies. We are professional imposters and the audience accept that. We've made this deal that we tell you a tale and a pack of lies, but there will be a truth in it. You may enjoy it, or it will disturb you.

As an actor, you really want to resonate with your audience.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

It's communication - that's what theatre is all about.

I do this acting thing mostly for myself. I like to make a connection and communicate with the audience to make myself feel less lonely. I also do it to develop my own character, so sometimes I do it to just be away in a certain area that I've never been to. But mostly, the story has to do something for me.

I've done a lot of theater, and I know that it's a different audience each time who doesn't know the story, and we have to tell it.

I've always really liked theater. It fascinated me. You can create a reality and get people involved in that reality. It takes place in real time.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

All my life I wanted to play music with love to every member of the audience.

As an actor, you're naked emotionally; you're revealing yourself emotionally.

You know, it's recently come into focus for me why I want to be an actor: It's because of the connection I feel to people.

I became an actress to provoke people and move people and to tell the stories.

When you do a really good play, the audience and the performers are looking into the same looking glass, the same microscope. And the specimen they are looking at is human life and that's why I do it, that's why I like it.

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.

Listen, acting is not surgery, it's entertainment. You're doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we're vulnerable is that we're always trying to recreate human behaviour.

It was a big deal to me to play characters and feel things and connect to somebody in a fake world.

Don't forget there are two sides to performing. Finding the truth, but you also have to be transparent enough for the audience to see it. How many times have you seen a performance and thought: 'Well, it seems to be meaning a great deal to you but it ain't coming across to me?' It is to be shared.

As an actor, you know when you've got great material in front of you. When you're working, you think, 'Is this the one? The one that everyone will respond to and be moved by?' You pray that you have told the story well... that your peers will see it and audiences will love it.

We all go to the theater and cinema to be inspired and moved on an emotional level, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears. Once I discovered that acting could have such an effect, I was sold. It has been one of the most rewarding discoveries I have ever made.

I think people in theater are pretty open-minded and objective about the talent and what they can bring to the story they want to tell.

Your job as an actor, I guess, is just to make people relate to the character.