Adam Rapp Quotes

I don't like to be challenged in the way that often happens, where somebody writes something and then you, as an actor, are expected to really make it up in your imagination. That's not really an ideal way of working.

John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.

It seems to me that I never grow unless I'm actually working with other actors who have shed whatever shell it is that keeps them insulated from each other.

So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.

Maybe it's just my improv and sketch background, but I'm a lot more comfortable in a group. I like sharing focus and populating an ensemble.

The relationship with the cast has everything to do with how a performance develops, and in a sense that while you're discovering a play in the course of rehearsal with the director, you're also discovering it with your fellow actors. We're all in it together.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes.

But I just think we've got such a continuity with what we're doing that most people come in and fill in the blanks. And sometimes we leave a lot of blanks to be filled.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

When I'm making records, I like it to be quite fast. Don't let the band learn it too well.

I think there's something really freeing about improv, that it's a collective, creative, in-the-moment piece. That's really exciting and really frustrating, because it's there and gone. There's an amazing interaction with the audience that happens because they are very much another scene partner.

It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.

To be able to work with actors who are doing such good work, not only makes it easier for you, but it makes you better.

My friends, we all improvise together usually. So we write what I think is a good script but always leave a lot of room to find stuff on the day; and we always do find something. That's the advantage to having actors who are, in their own right, writers.

Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.

I actually like working with the other three actors on the show.

I approach music and acting the same way, through spontaneous improvisation. I never really try to rehearse anything, do it over and over, except when we're inside a take.

To really be on stage and not know what you're going to say, and to be able to say something that makes people laugh, or do something that's sort of abstract or off the beaten path and have people connect to it by just putting your ideas together, that really makes me happy.

I have worked alone and with a cast and enjoy the process both ways. There is more back-and-forth with a full cast, and you can feed off the other actors' performance.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.

All four of the actors in 'You're the Worst,' we all have strong theater backgrounds. We all play off of each other in that way that you would in theater. You kind of are up for anything out of the blue happening and getting it on film, you know? We're all just open to playing.

My method is much like choreography. I don't sit at a table. I work in a room with people.

With acting, there's a certain amount of independence you have within the framework of the storytelling. When it's done well, it's a collaborative medium.