Matt Walsh Quotes

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.

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me.

I love improvising on the spot. I like that pressure.

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again.

At my shows you have time to relax, time to just enjoy something really dumb, time to laugh at something that's weird or unexpected and time to think. There's all sorts of things happening and it's great being able to go any way I choose at any given moment.

My crutch was, in improvs, when in doubt, play insane, because you didn't have to excuse anything that came out of your mouth. It didn't have to make sense.

Spontaneity is everything to me, working without a net.

I just have fun on stage. There's nothing premolded out there. I try to always do something different.

There's a certain amount of joy in playing a character in the moment and not knowing what's going to roll out as it goes on. It's a bit like life, in a way.

The musicians in the band, and myself as a performer, love the risks of the unpredictable and the feeling of jumping off cliffs musically.

The best thing about theatre is that every time we get onstage, the show is new.

At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew. It's like making love. The act is always the same, but each time it's different.

When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.

It's hard to keep a play alive moment-to-moment, you know? But there's another part of it that I really love, which is that you never know.

I come from the world of improv; I love any show or any vehicle that gives me an opportunity to be in the moment.

I've always believed acting is an improvisational art form, even when not a single line is changed. I mean, the behavior should always be improvised. My favorite moments in any performance are when I'm just along for the ride; when I'm surprising myself. I know when I'm done and I think to myself, 'Gee, I didn't see that coming,' I've done well.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

I'd rather play here in this small bar and just do a good show. Because it's fun and there's no expectations, it's encouragement to be different, do something new.

From the moment you say 'action,' this is the fun part - things should happen that surprise you, excite you, scare you, turn you on, make you laugh. If things aren't surprising you, when you say 'cut,' whisper things to the actors that will make them do things that do surprise you.

I still find new things every night, which is the beauty and fun of live theater. It's a living, breathing art form.

You can't plan everything - if I did a performance exactly how I rehearsed it, it would be so boring.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

Acting allows me the freedom to let go, to be in the moment, to be spontaneous. I no longer have the fear of losing, of failure.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.