Geoffrey Rush Quotes

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

You always hear actors say, 'Theater is my first love,' and it is. It's a time when you really get to do what you do, and there's not a lot of waiting around and interruption and not a lot of money involved - sometimes money really clouds the waters of creativity.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

I suppose there are actors who are worried about their public image. But I've never had any trouble playing unpleasant characters. It is only a part. Which is why you do it -because you are interested in exploring something you never could or would be.

Unlike film, live theater is an anti-naturalistic medium in which character is mainly illuminated through speech and movement.

There are always dimensions, and the way they get expressed is through the writing and the actors and the director you get to work with on that day. But there are always dimensions, outside of really basic stuff for very young people where it needs to be very clear.

The stage is like a laboratory where you can run theatrical experiments, imposing interesting conditions on the cast or story and seeing how they pan out. Each new play is like creating a tiny virtual universe enclosed by the confines of the stage.

I became an actress to provoke people and move people and to tell the stories.

I'd love to play more challenging roles, characters that would stretch my comfort zone and imagination.

Acting is like any other art form, in that you have the option to go very big or go very small.

I don't know why every actor doesn't do more plays.

I have, I think to do a play a year is very good if you can afford the time and the energy because it's difficult to do, it's really the actors medium of course, because you're really out there and nobody's yelling cut so, yeah I have.

I think I'll always prefer theater to working in front of the camera. It seems a more distilled form of the craft.

Theater has always been most important to my psyche.

I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.

Film is not as exhilarating, not as physically, mentally, or spiritually challenging, as theatre.

I love the power of theater. I think it's an experience you never forget.

A seven-minute take is almost like theater.

I'm an actor in that I just want to create roles and characters and play parts that people remember and like or dislike or hate.

Theater is such its own living, breathing animal. You do a show every night, but it's different every night. Being on stage, you're experiencing a journey.

I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.

Playing dysfunctional characters or crazy characters is only fun if they're well written. So I have been lucky enough to be asked to play crazy people who are very well written.

Theater is about life, not about television or movies.

In theater acting, you leave that night and what it was is what it was.