Jean Kerr Quotes

I've been on shows where they're just setting it up, and they're trying to find the tone of the writing and performance. That's always a really chaotic period on shows.

But you're not necessarily ever going to be handed a script where you can say: it's all done and perfect.

All of the material for 'The Fine Line' was created via improvisation with my partner, but not in front of an audience. We'd continue to refine it in front of an audience based on their responses until it was set and scripted.

Definitely when you give a script to an actor, it's like dropping a capsule in water and the fizzing starts. That's when the thing starts to live and breathe.

The best part of acting is the rehearsal, because that is where the real discovery comes. And if you're lucky, some of that actually makes it onto the page and some of that actually makes it onto the screen.

I guess that if I was a normal cartoonist who did things properly, I'd think up the background information first and then come up with the story. Saying that, you'd think that I don't really think through anything.

I love telling stories. I don't really think in terms of clear 'aims.'

Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.

At heart, I would have to say I'm a pantser. I fully embrace the chaos of letting the unintended happen, on life and on the page.

Actors have their own processes, and if you want to be respectful of their process, you've got to communicate with them in the language of their process, and keeping that all straight is a little bit of a head-scratcher.

I don't really compare any of the characters I play; I try to go into them being very open to what the characters can offer and what I can bring to them and then bring a being to life.

I write in the booth and memorize in rehearsals.

The difference between noise and music is in what the musician does with the sounds.

I struggle quite a lot in rehearsals, partly because I'm shy, partly because I still don't really understand the work that actors and directors do. I love the magic at the end, but the getting there - the wrong turns that are necessary to make something work - I find slightly beguiling and worrying.

The way that 'Vampire' was born was over a lunch. We got asked to do the show. A week later, we were hired. A week later, we were writing it. The minute we handed it in, it was ordered. The minute we shot it, it was picked up. Then we started working. There was never any, like, 'OK, here's what this show is...' We had to figure it out as we went.

I'm not a Method actress. I work in the present, the day-to-day.

I try not to think too hard about music. I like to see where it goes. I try not to give it a direction. I figure out what it is as it's forming. I don't have any goal in mind other than to make the best music I can.

Really, I just sit down, mess around, and play with sounds.

Even though there is randomness and improvisation in my music, I want to have some concrete idea that I can hold onto.

Though I have an idea about the climax, it always changes when we start shooting.

I just take every script as it comes along and take it from there.

When I was working on 'Deadwood', it was understood that the script was a work in progress, and when we got to set, everyone would kind of work on it together.

I remember before I did my HBO special, Chris [Rock] screamed at me - in a loving way, but still. He was like, "You need to do 200 shows in a row and a month straight on the road before you even think about recording a special!" And I had literally booked two weeks on the road and then went right into the recording. It put me in a panic, but it also made me work harder and made me realize that everyone works differently, and that's okay.

What people think improvisation is and non-improvisation is, it's nothing to do with what you like or dislike. It's all about how it happens with certain directors and certain scenes. That's the way it works. It's not something, in general, that you can decide.

All my other movies have the same process. Same approach. Same amount of changes. Everything. Things being made up on the fly. Changing things around. Firing and recasting. Constantly, constantly, in chronological sequence, not really knowing how this is going to end up. That is the only dogmatic approach I take towards everything.