Tracy Letts Quotes

I think every actor is looking for a challenge, and to play something different, and to be a part of a project with other great actors.

It's an odd mix, the life of a playwright.

I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.

Acting is my first focus, but at the core, I'm a storyteller, and however that comes out is fine with me.

For me, as an actor, just to keep acting and to keep being able to work and to do different roles and challenging roles, that's something I'd love to do.

Playwrights are naturally wary and protective - God, who's more protective than a playwright? You read a play, the playwright wants to hear from you immediately.

I enjoy all forms of writing, but playwrighting is what made me what I am. Not only working with the ghosts of Chekhov and Ibsen and Shakespeare, but what it is to be a playwright, to be interacting with human beings in the live theater and affect people on such a direct, emotional level.

Before 'The Walking Dead,' a few of the jobs before that were just like, 'Ugh.' I try and make everything as creative as possible, even when I get the script and can't imagine what I'm going to do with it.

I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.

Actors love to do extreme things, so that is why they become actors; otherwise, they'd be novelists.

I will always accept good films that require demanding performances.

I have written before, but I was primarily an actor and improvisational performer.

If I have a long period of time away from acting, I tend to write.

Everything that I am going to do as an actress doesn't matter where it's coming from. It just has to be interesting.

I learned a lot from Dick Wolf. I'll always remember playing that character because it was such a good character. It was great to be able to be a character like that for television. I think the thing that I'll bring from the whole experience, the whole 10 years, is I had never been interested in the television business before.

Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.

I'm a storyteller. I'm always willing to serve the story, a story I believe in, in whatever way is necessary. If I need to write the story I believe in, I will write it. If I've been offered to act in a story that I truly believe in, I will happily do that, but I'm a storyteller. That's something I'm so thankful for.

I like to challenge myself and grow as an actress.

It's a lucky life to be a playwright.

One of the things I learned on medical drama 'Bodies' was that actors can't play ambiguity.

Stage acting lets you feel the character a little better, but in the movies, you have to keep regenerating your energy level when shooting scenes over and over again.

I think it's dependent on where life takes me. For sure, I absolutely adore acting. It has been my passion from a very young age. But at the same time I am very intrigued by the camera, and also very intrigued by props.

I always have something big enough to say as a playwright. It's storytelling.

The truth is, good actors are always looking to do something different. They are dying to play slightly odder characters or work on movies that aren't straight down the middle.