Janet McTeer Quotes

Acting is a sport - especially working with Mark Rylance. There is competition involved. I have to be muscular, challenging, get audiences on side. It's extraordinary how Globe audiences join in - it's like competing at an event - I love it.

It's tricky territory, height and co-stars. The only thing I can say is that it's never been an issue in my life.

After doing 'Pitch Perfect,' I didn't expect to do other musicals, but then I was offered 'The Last Five Years' and 'Into the Woods,' which are two of the greatest pieces of theater that I can think of. So obviously I wasn't going to be like, 'Oh I'm trying to really stay away from musicals right now, so thanks, but I'll pass.'

I am quite short, but that never comes across when I'm onstage in front of people. When I get offstage and greet an audience afterwards, their first reaction is to comment on my height because it seems like a very drastic difference.

If you want to act, do school plays. If they're not there, create them, and the same with local repertory. They are the grounding for a lot of people. Make it happen.

I used to do school plays. I never really took any acting classes. I'm just a natural ham, I guess.

I carried on acting during school holidays and was all set to go to drama school when I was offered my first professional job appearing in 'King David' with Richard Gere.

I feel like my early experiences of acting, and I think a lot of other actors' too, are probably at camp or school plays where you get to have great range. At camp, I remember getting to play a 50-year-old man.

At school there was no acting to be had other than school plays which I did now and again.

Le Petit is where I cut my teeth with some of my early roles. In 1982, I was in the chorus of 'Gypsy' and soon after I had my first lead as Jamie Lockhart in 'The Robber Bridegroom.'

I think if my daughter was interested in acting, I would find ways for her to act in theater that has to do with her school or a kids' improvisational thing. There are ways to do it where you're not on a movie set with 60 adults, which I loved at the time, but as a parent, I don't know that I'd be dying to put her in that spot.

Honestly, I'm willing to experiment with far more variety in roles than I'm given. But ultimately, it's the producer's decision. But, I've done a variety of roles - the evil don, the evil husband... I've done villainous roles, supporting roles, etc.

I think the reason they cast me as the good girls is because they couldn't find any in Hollywood.

For some reason, I always get offered plays when I'm doing plays and then, if I stop doing them, people stop asking me.

Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience.

I've heard New York actors say Chicago actors intimidate them because apparently we're the real nitty-gritty actors who're in a town where being onstage doesn't necessarily get you anything except your craft.

I'm a little concerned I'm always going to be playing a black guy, you know what I'm saying?

People don't see me in traditional roles; I'm not getting cast in the revival of 'Company' as Bobby.

People may know me from films, but theater is my first love. I did about 35 plays before I even landed my first screen role. I'm very comfortable on stage, and theater is not something you can just wing.

One thing that seems to surprise the studios is finding out later my willingness to audition. Under the right circumstances, I actually enjoy it very much.

I never played an ingenue.

I had accidentally gotten a laugh on a line in a play I was in during high school. I got hooked, but I had no idea I would ever be able to support myself by acting. I knew no one in the business. I was from the Midwest. No one within a radius of a thousand miles was doing anything like that.

I get cast a lot of times in movies with nice people for some reason - because I have a nice face or something.

I started acting when I was seven, so I've read my share.

I started acting in junior high. I was in 'Guys and Dolls.' I was Stanley Kowalski. In my head, before coming to Hollywood, I thought, 'I can play anything.'