Deborah Mailman Quotes

When you're always onstage, you really have to focus on listening and reacting.

There is only so much you can do if you're pulling weight and there's nobody there to play off of. You can't have those beautiful moments with new actors who are so worried about everything else but the moment.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

When you take on an acting or dancing role, you have to trust your director, and in some ways there is freedom in relinquishing control.

The more and more I work with really great actors, the more it's about opening yourself up to what they bring.

You have to open up on stage.

The more you perform and get out there, I guess the more practice you have at it and the better you are and the more comfortable you are on stage.

I definitely loved going on stage, I loved the nervous feeling and the performance and the doing-ness of it. It always felt kind of natural and inevitable and logical.

Chemistry is one of these crazy things you can't teach or learn or you can't fake. You go in hoping it will work, hope that you will connect with the other actors. I was fortunate on 'Modern Family' and 'The Procession.' They are great people, very easy to like.

Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.

I feel real confidence in working on the stage.

Once I'm on set, the only thing I'm really interested in is being in the room. Being present. And trusting that what I've done is sufficient, and I'm also trusting that I've also left room for magic.

Once you sit in front of people and start playing songs, it's all on you. No matter what happens, it's entirely your responsibility the entire time. I like that intensity.

What I learned is that acting is to a large extent about trying to stave off self-doubt long enough to be natural and real onstage.

'Johnny' was always a lone wolf when he got on stage. Him against the world, whereas suddenly, when I got into acting, people were relying on me.

Can I be a leading man? I don't believe myself to be; I don't think that I am, but I'm in this place as a performer where I think about how to make things smaller, more subtle.

My whole process is based on meditation as well as listening really closely to what the director says and what the choreographer says. I try to stay in the immediate present reality with my partners on stage, give and take reality.

It's fun finding your way to the performance instead of coming in and hoping to God you're impressing the director - and hoping you're delivering the lines right with no treatment beforehand.

I didn't know if I could be funny on stage or write a joke. But I saw that there are no rules. If you're funny offstage, you can figure out a way to be funny onstage.

I started by doing a little funny story, and then I started going to open mics. I realized I had a lot of work to do - you have to get over the stage fright and get your stage presence up. It took me some time, but I finally feel that I'm at a point where I feel comfortable on stage and giving my point of view.

There's something about us as stand-ups that when we're on our feet, we feel more in control of the situation and in control of our bodies and our delivery.

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.

To do a comedy team, it requires so much extracurricular stuff, so much compromise, so much intuitiveness to know what the other guy is doing. That's why it's so hard to do it.

It's the most amazing cast, a dream cast. We laugh all the time.

I have a great time with my band and on the stage we get along well.