Tom Cullen Quotes

Acting scares me.

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.

I enjoyed doing Lipstick, but it scared me. I was very nervous. I couldn't wait for it to be over. It was very real, and I was just a kid.

I still get really nervous, though, before each performance. It kind of hits about 15 minutes before we go onstage - sometimes I don't even want to go on. But once I'm onstage I'm fine.

I'd love to do a comedy. I'm terrified of comedy. I don't think I'm funny, but I guess that's why it's so thrilling.

I've never really been one to get what they call stage fright so much.

I'm not saying I look cool, but every single time I go onstage, it is a fail if I don't feel like I'm going to pass out at least twice.

I get terrified the first day I'm on a film set. I get nervous walking down a red carpet. I find making speeches the most terrifying thing in the world.

To begin with, I don't have any stage fright.

In the beginning, I was frightened to death of going solo. Especially when doing live shows, I was so used to my brothers being next to me. It felt like the crowd was just looking at me, waiting for me to either mess up or prove myself.

I think the first table read I ever did, my hand was vibrating the whole time.

I think nerves are part and parcel of working as an actor. You can either work against them or you can embrace them, and I very much embrace them.

Almost every actor goes into almost every picture very frightened. He is positive he really can't do it. The bigger the star, the more frightened he is.

Performing was terrifying.

Acting is an uncomfortable business because you have to make yourself vulnerable.

I did Shakespeare in college and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.'

I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was appropriate in a scene.

Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.

When I had just started 'Cheers,' my nerves were ajangle, to put it mildly. I was absolutely terrified. What you're learning is to not show the fear, and to ultimately overcome it so that the level of relaxation is commensurate with the level of tension.

I remember that Jack Lemmon, who is one of my favorite actors of all time, says that the day he stops being nervous is the day he should leave the business.

On stage, I am in the dark.

Before every performance, I think I am about to keel over.

The first night was awful because I was so afraid, and I was never more afraid because it was going out of my character to be outgoing and to be vulnerable and to be out there and onstage. My hands were sweaty and I couldn't swallow, and I drank a bottle of wine to calm my nerves.

I was too shy, I think, to sing publicly. It takes a particular kind of person. And when I was young, I was not that person. In the first instance, when a record company said to me, do you want to try and make your record, my first reaction was, no, I'm not worthy - I couldn't possibly, and so on and so forth.

The first play I did was 'Philadelphia Here I Come.' Can you imagine that? I am 37 years old I am doing my second professional play and I am on stage with John Malkovich. Joan Allen, Laurie Metcalf and Gary Sinise. One huge name after another. I was terrified and petrified, could hardly get a word out of my mouth.