Elaine Stritch Quotes

The key to acting is less acting and just reacting.

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.

Whatever you see me do is spontaneous reactions on stage. It's nothing planned. It's nothing that I got in the room and tried to think of hard. It just happens through feeling.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting.

If the actor doesn't feel it's right, that's when you say, 'OK, let's find something else.' It's then that you get the natural moment.

I generally won't do a role unless I feel like it's in my system somewhere, even if it's just a molecule of it. Like I just felt like I knew it and if I talked about it or discussed it or tried to rehearse it that it would take away the energy from that scene so I went in there and just did it.

I have great faith in the actors. When they improvise, it always sounds better than the stuff I write in my bedroom. When they improvise, they make it sound alive.

I love the idea of playing a character that didn't over think everything. He knows what's in front of him and he has an ability to just say whatever he felt.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

I don't rely on catchphrases or really like sing-along. I just do whatever I feel. Whatever the beat makes me say, I do that and I run with that. It's been working for me, so I'd be cool with that.

This is where you see the truth of entertainment, because it is not edited. You see it on stage as it is happening. Even if we fall down or forget our words, it's a part of live entertainment.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.

It helps with your acting when you're not in a perfect costume, perfect wardrobe, a perfectly seamed blouse, perfectly ironed hair, and perfectly done eyeshadow. It's really liberating.

So, to come In with a set routine it's something I've never believed in. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.

Acting is experience with something sweet behind it.

I learned from Van Morrison and BB King that the first take is the best. It's about capturing a moment. It's the same as love's first kiss. If you try to do it again, it doesn't work so well.

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

Acting is just being a man. Being human. Not forcing it.

I like to learn the lines and not get any precontrived things in my head about the part. Just get on stage and see what the other actors are doing, and respond to them as honestly as I can.

The best actors just stay in the moment, and whatever happens in the scene is a genuine surprise. You really do not know what's going to happen next. But living that out in life is very dangerous because it throws you into a place where you don't know if you're going to survive.

When I'm performing music, it's like I'm doing a big improv.

I think of myself as a theater animal instead of an intellectual animal.

Acting is about being in the moment and audiences are smart to know what is authentic and what is not.