Tom Hanks Quotes

There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment.

I wasn't playing the music, the music was playing me... and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn't wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud... You cannot fool an audience.

For me, to be perfectly honest, the part of my brain that was stimulated by directing was much more exciting than a typical day of acting.

For many years, there has been only one place where I am in touch with my emotions fearlessly, and that's the stage. Being on stage fills my soul in many ways, almost completely. It's my vice.

You leave part of yourself on every stage you're on. How could you not live in the air somehow?

That connectivity with the audience that I get to enjoy, that's my church. It's not one of ego or anything like, 'I'm on the stage and the lights.' It's just this connectivity, and it's always been that way for me.

Personally, I love music, as it's my first love, and if I ever act, it has to be something close to music. That's when I will feel great about doing it.

You know...sometimes I'll be looking out at the audience and I'll be in the middle of a song, and I'll just stop dead. I'll look out at them, and think what is this... There's one thing that keeps me doing it though, I really love it, I believe in it.

The clarinet has always been my baby. I just didn't know that for a while.

I like to talk to the audience once the show starts, as much as possible, and feel connected to them. I don't feel quite as nervous when I do that because, then, you feel like they're on your side.

Singing has been a passion of mine, equal to or greater than acting, ever since I was very small.

Oh, what a dear ravishing thing is the beginning of an Amour!

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

Great performers welcome pressure.

If one has no heart, one cannot write for the masses.

I'm always nervous about it. You know, somehow, without even knowing it, I try and recreate the idea of what it feels like to go in front of an audience every night when I'm making a film. And that similar type of pressure and excitement before a scene, or preparing for a movie, so...

Motivation is a battle for the heart, not just an appeal to the mind. Passion is always an expression of the soul.

In no other sport is the connection between performer and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved

The reason I got into acting was the audience is right there and if you did something great they were right there and you knew it.

I suppose expectations are strange and I shy away from them. And the whole point of being an actor is to connect.

I want people to see my movies. My talent, my sensibilities are what people want to see in the movies... While I have the talent to make the kind of movies people want to see I want to continue to do that, keep making big pictures and make what I love. I’m really just making the films I want to see. There’s not a strategy.

A movie is kind of like being the captain of a ship, which is nice, but when I perform by myself it's just surfing on the water and nobody really knows what happens.

I got on stage and I went, "Oh wow. No stage fright." I couldn't do public speaking, and I couldn't play the piano in front of people, but I could act. I found that being on stage, I felt, "This is home." I felt an immediate right thing, and the exchange between the audience and the actors on stage was so fulfilling. I just went, "That is the conversation I want to have."

I'd like to think that what I've written over the years and what I'm doing now means something to people. People in the street all the time are saying "love the new record" or "I love that record," this tune or that tune. It means an awful lot, or it's been a big part of their lives. As a songwriter, what else would you really want? You're trying to connect with people, people's emotions, and maybe say something about their lives or feelings. That's probably a good enough compliment to receive, really.

There are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it. I had a checkered early career with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about. Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.