Tim Robbins Quotes

It was a treat to work with Sarmad Sehbai. I wish actors had more teachers like him.

I never felt Lee Strasberg could act, and I fail to see how someone who can't act can teach acting.

A lot of moms give their kids line reads. My mom wasn't put in that position because I always had an acting teacher helping with the feelings rather than how to say something.

I got my degree in acting and theater, and then I had a teacher who told me to take a class with The Groundlings. And for a second, I thought, 'Well, I don't know about that. I'm a serious actress.' And then I did, and I loved it, and I said, 'Ah, well, I guess this is what I'm going to do now.'

I had many, many mentors that I worked with. Music teachers, choir directors, directors in summer stock or in regional theater. You know, people I was able to work with repeatedly and learn from who were really sort of appropriate people for me to work with at a given time in my development as an actor.

I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value.

I went to the Guilford School of Music and Drama, which was affiliated with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was lucky enough to be taught by a beautiful, wonderful teacher called Patsy Rodenberg, who works a lot with the Royal Shakespeare Company as a voice coach and technician.

I love the way we do theatre in London: I love the fact that everybody is trained.

I understudied Colm Feore quite a bit in '85 and '86 - 'Persephone' and 'The Boys from Syracuse,' too - and that was great, great training for me. He was and he is an amazing theatre actor.

I had the great fortune to work with John Houseman at Juilliard.

Naseer Sir taught me while I was a student at the Film and Television Institute of India. Anything I know about acting is thanks to him.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

I have a theory about that, if you have to say something, if you have encourage for one second a prospective acting student - he should not go in to acting.

But it is a hard, it's a hard profession teaching acting.

Britain produces great actors because they learn on stage so know their stuff when they get on a movie set.

I love working with actors, and it's all been based on my being trained in the theater.

I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing.

As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

I actually never got in a play in school. My teacher said I never learned my lines.

If you're not doing something right, you can feel it on stage, and if it isn't going well, the audience will tell you. A teacher can teach you sense memory and this and that, but until you get in front of an audience, you don't really feel it.

I started teaching when I was in my 20s because Lee Strasberg asked me to, and he didn't do that with a lot of people.

I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.

Who I always refer to as my acting mentor when I got into junior college is an acting professor by the name of Tom Blank. He took me under his wing, and he was that strong male figure. He was tough love, but he believed in me, saw everything that I had.

You turn up on set, and somebody who has come out of Oxford, has done a BBC course, is telling you how to act. You think, 'Do me a favour. Go and make a coffee.'

For me, rehearsal is very important, and I spend a lot of time doing it. Also, I work with my acting teacher for hours and hours before walking onto any set.