Christopher Walken Quotes

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

It's impossible for me to play a part without thinking about the audience.

When you are in a good theatre show, it is a wonderful and very fulfilling experience, entertaining a large audience and their showing their appreciation for your efforts.

I want to be back on Broadway one day. That's a dream of mine. There's nothing like live theater, and I think it's so important for me to be able to be on stage with an audience that responds.

Performing live is easy in front of an audience.

For any performer who's coming up, if they really want to test their psychology and how they handle themselves on stage, then coming to the U.K. as a whole is a wonderful place for that.

There's nothing like performing for a live audience.

I think a show is more of an interacting with fans than you just singing songs.

If I was at the Comedy Cellar at midnight you yelled at the back of the room. But you, for television, play it to the camera because yes you're communicating to the people at home using the studio audience that's right in front of you as a guide for that.

For an actor, there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience.

Well, it's really gratifying to me to have a stage and some bright lights and a microphone. They're tools and opportunities, and to be able to just pull somebody up on stage with me and point at them is a great feeling.

I love the theater because I love the live audience and when we went three cameras we have a live audience in the study so we had someone to play to and react to. That laughter.

I mean there’s a certain finality about a movie, when it’s done it’s done – that raised eyebrow in that moment will always be that raised eyebrow. Whereas a play only lives as a blueprint for a performance on any given night. There’s a reason you can eat popcorn and watch a movie and you can’t do that in the theatre. Theatre you have to lean in, you have to tune your ear to the stage and participateI respond to heat. And blood. And humanity. The cold experience is not for me. I’ve always enjoyed all the real people in a room together in the theatre.

No matter what, I will always prefer a live performance. Whether it be a play or a musical, or playing music live. As long as it's live, it's the best because there's sort of an immediacy to connection between an audience and a performer, whereas where you do film or television, you're at the whim of so many different forces.

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.

I grew up in music theater playing to the audience - singing and dancing and showing off. That's really my background. But the camera's different. I think I'm more at home on stage.

I love being onstage, I love the relationship with the audience.

I love the theater because the theater is alive. The audience is right there.

Being in front of a live audience again. I get that in my concerts but there's nothing like being on Broadway.

There isn't really a theatre culture in L.A., which is odd when there are so many brilliant actors there.

I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

It was a wonderful experience to live the life for a year; to spend all day doing Shakespeare and then do a play in the evening.

I'd love to go back and do theater. There's nothing like that instant response and the connection to a live audience.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.