Karen Allen Quotes

You always hear actors say, 'Theater is my first love,' and it is. It's a time when you really get to do what you do, and there's not a lot of waiting around and interruption and not a lot of money involved - sometimes money really clouds the waters of creativity.

I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.

I don't think musicals are my thing. I'm not a big fan. Definitely have to get on the stage and do something like a straight play.

You want to have the experience. As far as the creative side, the more I do this, the more I know that it's all about the writing. You got on a film sometimes and it's sort of half-written, and they expect and think that the actor's job is to bring the extra part and the good part. It's not. We're good at saying what other people have written, but for the majority of it, that's about it, comedians aside. It's all in the writing. Whether that's dialogue or character, or whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as they've done something special, than you can do something special.

When the play is still evolving I try to be at rehearsal as often as possible, and part of that casting process. You find new things when the language is living in different people's mouths.

I do get stressed at times, but I love what I do as an actor. This is the part that I don't like. I don't actually like talking about - I wish I could just go and get on with my job, because I love getting a script, breaking it down, working with other people, bonding with other people, fighting with other people, and out of those arguments, creating something that nobody expected and seeing it all come together. Telling a story, having an impact on people's lives, moving them and making them laugh.

The performance is created by the director. The actor is the material. And I think that has to be true.

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.

I think I have learned to really get out of the mathematical side of myself that looks at story and story structure and go with, "Okay, well, what would people do in real life?"

I'm so not a performer, my drive to do [acting] is so different to other people - and I'm not discrediting that, they're born performers, they're people that you love to watch just be themselves. I like to be a little bit more in control. I like to make something.

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.

Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story.

I expect at some point I'll probably want to go back on stage and do some theater, because I've not done theater in 10 years.

In theater, there's a lot of work to do to build the characters. It's a great experience.

And I have the support of the writers: I have a great relationship with the creative team, and they have a good hold of my character and my personality, and they come up with some great stuff, and I'm forever trying to change it up, keep it fresh.

I had written a story. I wrote the story out of some desperation, really, and I didn't know I was writing a story, and it took me years. And when I finished, a friend of mine had the idea that the story should be read as a monologue in a theater.

It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

I've always been interested in character-driven pieces, and my approach to directing is through acting.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

I love to see how a character unfolds off the page in a project. I don't always know how the character is going to turn out, even with the script being there. It's not always clear where that character is going to take me. Or where I will take them.

You have to realize that when I started to work on 'Aladdin', Disney Theatrical wasn't in existence. I suppose I had always hoped that 'Aladdin' would be somewhere on the runway.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

I always feel that if you put me in a room with a director and a writer and let me talk about the script, I can give a good account of myself.

I'd love to do another television series. I really love the writing process, and as an actor I really like how much you get to examine in television.

When I first became an actress, I expected to do regional and classical theater; I just love the whole creative process.