Tatiana Maslany Quotes

'Endgame' resists narrative and even thematic explanation. How you play it has to reflect this. If you decide something too much in advance, you forget the element that gives the play life - the audience.

There are definitely some set topics I go onstage with and want to talk about, but there's also an element of improvisation and spontaneity that I like to bring to each performance and talk about uniquely in that room.

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

Feeling supported when you are doing comedy is the best way to make comedy - at least, that's how I think.

Every single performance of 'Fleabag,' I would learn so much from the audience reaction or how you could change it all the time, and I loved that sense that the performance is ever-growing and changing and could be affected by the audience.

When you're on Broadway, what's kind of the whole point is that you find something new in the show each night.

Playing live is really the art form. You're a lot freer, a lot looser. You've got people there that can give you feedback, and then you can play off of that. There's so much more energy.

If you do television, and it's great, it's the best job there is. Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. I love that it's like theater too, and the audience, and it's so short, like twenty minutes... It's like a Haiku or something.

With a play, for me, there's no time to sit back on it. You're living on your instincts. And every night there are subtle changes and adjustments, because what's in front of you is a living, breathing audience.

I think that providing obstructions in the live setting is when you get something that actually means something, as opposed to just aping your way through your greatest hits.

Maybe it's just my improv and sketch background, but I'm a lot more comfortable in a group. I like sharing focus and populating an ensemble.

There's something interesting about playing live; you're in the moment, and I think it would be beneficial.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

I'm an entertainer, so in whatever form I entertain... The thing about being a rapper is that you have more control over your form, whereas with acting you have to compromise a lot.

I think there's something really freeing about improv, that it's a collective, creative, in-the-moment piece. That's really exciting and really frustrating, because it's there and gone.

My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too.

Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.

I used to have costumed characters come out, like SpongeBob. It's just fun to make it into this minor event, just to surprise people and experiment and be weird and just have fun with it. I've done just the hour stand-up, and that's fun, but the other stuff makes it fun for me and gives me something to react to and bounce off of.

Most of my act is improvisation. I'm inspired for the moment. Standing there in front of 2,000 or 3,000 people you don't know can be pretty inspiring.

I'm a performer. I push the envelope, I work in a very uncontrolled manner onstage. I do a lot of free association, it's spontaneous, I go into character.

A lot of my best stuff is just ad libs on stage, and that's one thing that I've gotten back to at the live show.

Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist.

When you deal with a comedian who has a specific act, you can't hold 'em back. You got to work with 'em, dude. What you think, I'm just gonna do what's on the page, say 'yes sir, no sir'? I'm creatively beyond that.

A certain rough-around-the-edges improvisational looseness - a sense of something coming together before your eyes, or not quite - may be one of the things that distinguishes performance art from theater.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.