Patricia Clarkson Quotes

I love theater. Just, it never spoke to me.

As a kid, I was fortunate that we grew up near a children's theater, with all different classes and things; so as a kid I took classes there and as I got into high school I did all the community theater stuff. Then I came to college here in New York, going to Marymount Manhattan, and studied acting there. But most of the training I got was from working. Working with really great people.

I went to school to play sports, but I got involved in theatre in college kind of by mistake. I ended up taking an acting class almost just to get rid of an arts requirement, but I wound up in this wonderful acting class with this teacher named Alma Becker who really saved my life. I was just kind of this knucklehead kid from DC and I was in and out of trouble all of the time. I took a theatre class and she really discovered something in me and I absolutely fell in love with it.

I love theater, I would love to do a play, but it's hard to beat.

Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.

For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer.

We need a place in which we may flourish and be ourselves.

A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world because that's where people are shown what they could be if they wanted and what they'd like to be if they dared to and what they really are.

I went to college for one semester, and I took every subject I could, and I ended up failing. So I thought to myself, Ever since I was a kid, I've loved expression - and that's when I started thinking about acting.

When I finally decided that my only hope was to go to college, I took an acting class, and once I walked onstage, I just knew I was home.

When I was in my freshman year at college I took some acting classes and found that I fell in love with it again.

I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong.

I played sports, I did all that, but I was a theater kid.

Finding ballet gave me passion for the first time in my life. I was always very shy and just wanted to fit in; I never daydreamed about what I wanted to be when I grew up. But dancing gave me a connection to my personality that made me grow.

I've always had a passion for acting, without really realising that that's what I should be doing.

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

I really, specifically, love acting, and I think it's a really cool thing to be really indulgent and follow that.

School plays are fine. Theater in school is fine.

I grew up in the theater, my mother is an actress, I was always around the world of acting and theater.

If I had to pick one form of acting, it would be live theater. That's where I started; that's where I became a man, I think I'm still finishing up that job.

I stopped feeling like I didn't belong anywhere, and realized that I actually belonged anywhere I wanted to be.

I absolutely love being on stage. I live and breathe the stage, and nothing makes me happier, but to perform.

I feel like my home is stage acting.

I consider theater, this is a vacation for me from LA, I sort of view this as I get to have this vacation and during my vacation I get to work on acting. It's like an acting class. And if I go too long without doing a play, I just feel empty. Like approaching a role, I feel like the pool is very shallow, like I'm drawn from it. So I need to come back and do a play, fortunately I've been able to, every couple of years.

Then, at age 20, I discovered theater sort of by accident. Quite quickly, theater became more important to me than music. I began to realize that maybe my talents as a musician were quite limited, or had a ceiling to them, whereas acting seemed to sort of stretch before me. I got very passionate about it very quickly.