Eva Mendes Quotes

I was always the lead role in plays. I like entertaining people. I like when you're on stage doing crazy stuff and the audience gets it.

A director recommended me for the role on 'Soap.' They said, 'She plays heavy roles, murderesses and the like.' He said, 'On stage, she could be very very funny.'

My senior year, I got to play Maureen in 'Rent,' and I had more fun than I'd ever had in my life.

It seemed fun to play a villain on stage and I wanted my jokes to be so good that I could just calmly tell them on stage.

You're just playing a role, whether it's a drama or a comedy. I find it really fun to sort of play opposite Uma.

Theatrical times are different from concert times, to put it simply. Taking a figure like [Mahatma] Gandhi and setting him on a stage requires thinking about what theater is about and what the whole experience is about and what we're trying to communicate in that way, so you get into certain less abstract considerations.

I get approached to do shows all the time. There's a lot of money in sitcoms, but I've never been the kind of guy who wanted to do one. I don't think people want to see me saying "Honey, I'm home." It's just not my thing.

A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.

I consider theater, this is a vacation for me from LA, I sort of view this as I get to have this vacation and during my vacation I get to work on acting. It's like an acting class. And if I go too long without doing a play, I just feel empty. Like approaching a role, I feel like the pool is very shallow, like I'm drawn from it. So I need to come back and do a play, fortunately I've been able to, every couple of years.

I don't think I've ever died on stage. I've had jokes that died on stage. I've told a joke and absolutely nothing. They didn't know it was the end of the joke.

I certainly did plays in high school and community theater, and I want to get back on the stage.

I hope I never have to stop acting. I love it. But, I think the coolest thing about acting is working with these amazing people all the time, and writing represented a new way to meet those people and to tell stories, at the same time, which I've always wanted to do, and to tell jokes. I love comedy, so writing was a way of getting these jokes that I had down on the page.

I really think that people who want to think more serious have to go and watch theater. Theater is a very sterilized art form. Not as much as music, but very close to music.

Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.

I'd love to perform with other actors and act with actors, true actors. I would like to be in a movie and have full room for acting.

I think everybody should act! I would encourage everybody to do one thing, join a theater class or something. It's so good to take a character that you think is wildly different from who you are, and to try to relate to that person and become that person is very helpful. It's hard to articulate what you learn, but you can feel the effect of these characters that you play and take with you.

I love theater, I would love to do a play, but it's hard to beat.

A lot of people don't see me as a funny character because I don't usually get to play them. I'm usually cast in the more dramatic roles, so it's been a really, really fun time playing her humor and her attitude. She's a complete tomboy, so I did a really intense study on men and how they relate to each other, in the way they walk and hold themselves and position themselves in the hierarchy, just in something as simple as a conversation.

I do love acting. It's my second love and I would love to do more.

Acting is like playing, while directing is really fun, sort of like an orgy.

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

I think, as an actor, theater is like one of the things that you feel most in control of and in charge of.

I think the most fun I ever had was playing King Arthur in Spamalot on the West End.

I love doing comedy, I really do. It was perhaps my first love. And I think, as an actor, you're young and you do school plays and the reason you go 'I might do more of this' is because you make people laugh in a school play. You don't go and do Hamlet when you're nine and go: "I feel people were really moved out there!" You do a silly voice and everyone laughs and you go: "Ooh, that feels quite nice. I might make a life out of this!"

In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous.