Casey Neistat Quotes

Everything is pre-taped these days, but I'm a believer in, 'If you can't do it live, don't do it.'

I want people to see a real person on the ice. I want to seem tangible, hard-working, passionate about my skating, not just going out and doing something I've rehearsed a million times.

I know that out of the thousands of people who show up, maybe nine of them will actually understand what's going on stage, music-wise. But no one should be sitting down in my concert.

Either something is authentic or it is unauthentic, it is either false or true, make-believe or spontaneous life; yet here we are faced with a prevaricated truth and an authentic fake, hence a thing that is at once the truth and a lie.

They're the salt of the earth, those girls. They don't sit each night and compare notes on groups, criticising lyrics, asking if it's valid. They just play the record... yeah, and maybe they dance. I love them. I love them dearly

I love living. I think that's infectious, it's something you can't fake.

Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.

I just like a good, honest personality. I like a real person, not somebody who is pretending to be something that they're not. That really annoys me.

The main thing on film is you want to be innocent to the moment.

I think the goal is to make a well written scene seem like it's improvised and/or to come up with things that you find in the room that you couldn't have known until you get into the real situation, just try to improve things as you go along.

I grew up in the theater, and you can't improvise Shakespeare and Ibsen. You have to speak the language. But obviously, in a contemporary film, there's often room for improvisation and spontaneous things that happen. As long as I know what I'm trying to achieve in the scene, and when something comes up, I know that the response is genuine, I'm comfortable. That's really how I build everything.

I really learned how to improvise at the Groundlings.It's something I've always loved to do. For some reason it feels more honest at times.

If you're doing live-action, you have to learn how to actually do whatever it is that you're doing. If you're doing voice-over, you can fake it.

Film, television, and working with a camera is such an intimate art form that if a camera is right on you, and I've got your face filling the screen, you have to be real. If you do anything that is fake, you're not going to get away with it, because the camera is right there, and the story is being told in a very real way.

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it.

Just sing it. Don't prove you can sing it. I know you can, you know you can. So just do it, because if you try to prove it, you'll lose.

I don't believe that you can give the same performance every take. It's physically impossible, so why bother? If you don't do what is happening at that moment, then it's not real. Then you're holding something back.

I think in the inception and creation of the characters, improv was the most important part for me, because I wanted to feel at home in those characters. I wanted to feel like I could commit to them. And so much of improv is saying yes and committing, so I think that's where the improv came in. Even if I'm saying yes to the X across the room from me, or the tennis ball on a stick, I have to stay alive.

You can fake your way to the table, but ultimately you have to learn how to eat.

I find I don't need to be polished. I feel that you have to keep it real, and that's the best way to go.

In England, I've done a whole bunch of stuff where I just make a complete ass of myself. I've been doing it for 20 years, so I just gravitate toward it anyway. I'd rather do that than do the stuff where I'm supposed to be trying to look cool in some way. It's more interesting to me.

It's always best not to be thinking a hell of a lot while you're acting, because you want it to be as spontaneous as possible, not too intellectual. Just behaving and listening to other people who you're doing scenes with. I always like the latter when it looks easy, even though it may not be.

No matter what you do, it can't be perfect. I told Jack White, 'If I'd 'a sung that song more'n twice, it might of sounded better.' He said, 'Well, it might not of. You might have took the spark out of it.' I don't know if he has a point or not. We'll find out.

The job is the same - to attempt to make it sound like you've never said it before and as if it's just occurred to you. And that's the same whether you're on camera or whether you're on stage in a room full of people.

Acting is like sex. You should just do it and not talk about it.