Liz Phair Quotes

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.

I just go with the flow, so any style can be in my music - that makes it exciting.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

I take improv classes. Improv is something I can use in any aspect of life.

Doing a musical is like having a kid. It's out there alive somewhere. It's not like a movie or a TV show where what we intended is what everyone will see. The kid can act out. The kid's going to do what it wants to do.

To really be on stage and not know what you're going to say, and to be able to say something that makes people laugh, or do something that's sort of abstract or off the beaten path and have people connect to it by just putting your ideas together, that really makes me happy.

I work a lot of things out on stage nowadays rather than writing them in big blocks.

There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like a part of the act.

If you can play, you can play anything. I don't like classifications.

When you work with an actor and then you discover new things that are better, I think you gotta be free to be able to go with the new things that you're finding. I think that's very important. I have a strong idea when I go to shoot a movie but I also love to discover things when I'm on set as well.

When I started out as an actor I knew very little, which was probably a good thing. I was totally open. You don't judge yourself, you do it.

I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it.

So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.

I wrote 'She's a Lady' on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones's TV show. Jones's manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an idea and I don't have a pad of paper, I'll write on whatever is available. What's the difference? Paper is paper.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical things actors bring to stories make it not work.

I like being in focus, in the moment, changing and adapting and creating and advancing a scene.

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

You don't learn acting, you nourish it. I don't regret not going to drama school because I was very afraid of all the lessons. I'm allergic to technicality.

I just throw it out and see what happens. If it sounds and feels right, then I continue.

I don't rely on catchphrases or really like sing-along. I just do whatever I feel. Whatever the beat makes me say, I do that and I run with that. It's been working for me, so I'd be cool with that.

I use a Bruce Lee technique: 'The way of no way.' He had the idea that he would learn everything, so that whoever he had to fight, he could improvise anything. The best way of starting a gig is just to not think of anything - to clear your mind, not in an empty Zen state, but more just to go on and see where you go.