Nora Dunn Quotes

When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.

I would say 95% of the time, because you just can't remember your lines if you're drinking alcohol. I would say about 95% of the time it was grape juice or this fake wine, which was horrible.

I love a drink. But I've never, ever in my life been on a stage and done a performance with an alcoholic drink inside me. Never have, never would. I've seen people who do and invariably they're never as good as they think they are.

I don't ever recall being nervous before performing because I've already stepped into the shoes and the clothes of the character.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

I am so used to being up on stage and talking to my fans that it's strange to be on stage and be someone else. I can't look at the audience during 'In the Heights' or I will start talking to them.

I get very competitive, mostly in acting though. When I'm going out for a role or something, that's when I really get very territorial about things.

The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.

As a young performer, I didn't know that you can have a great time playing someone in terrible crisis. The more you know it's not real, the deeper you can go into it. And the easier it is to let it go when it's done.

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to work very hard at a craft to get past that.

The trick to acting is not to show off; it's to think the thoughts of the character. I was lucky because when I started acting, it was doing jobs above pubs. I learned to act in anonymity, so by the time people saw me, I knew what I was doing. I was crap for years, but no one saw me being crap. It's a trade you learn.

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

Whenever I am acting, it's everything, you know. If I'm researching a role, I'm completely consumed in that and, between action and cut, I live in this suspended time.

Doing the long lines - it looks easy when actresses do it: they just say it straight up, looks like they do nothing wrong, they just keep going, but it's not like that.

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

All I have to do is be me on stage. But acting, I have to be someone else, and walk how they would walk and blink how they would blink. I used to talk about it bad like, 'Aw man, that person made $10 million a movie?' But now I understand why they do. I get it now.

When I'm playing a character, I don't wear perfume.

I think one of the mistakes actors make is we're so focused on what we're going to say.

While I can't walk on water, I can certainly wobble on whisky.

Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.

My mother asks when I will do some theatre, and there is something about getting your 15 minute call. That is what you become an actor for - performing in front of people and getting the love from the audience.

When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear.

Being on stage a lot is quite physical.

Drinking is a remarkable, automatic release and a way of relaxing.

The piano has been drinking, not me.