Patti Smith Quotes

Actors want to surprise themselves. When it's really good, you kind of transcend yourself, and that happens infrequently. Very, very rarely.

See, when I paint, it is an experience that, at its best, is transcending reality.

The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.

There's something about the energy and the expectations that an audience projects at you. I get up on stage and work and work, and there's chaos all around me, then I'll shut my eyes, and boom! I slot into the zone. It's like the eye of the hurricane. Everything is easy, and I'm capable of doing things I didn't know I was.

The theatre-acting, creating, interpreting - means total involvement, the totality of heart, mind and spirit.

My life is like a music-hall,Where, in the impotence of rage,Chained by enchantment to my stall,I see myself upon the stageDance to amuse a music-hall.

My boyfriend's a musician, and I think when he's on stage is the only time he's not worrying. And so that's the reason he keeps doing it is because it gives him that sort of experience of weightlessness that I only get out of being sort of, deep into writing something or really lost in a moment on set, like it's available to me in these select moments through my work.

.. I get more of a dreamy thing from the audience - it's more of a thing that you go up into. You get into such a pitch sometimes that you go up into another thing. You don't forget about the audience, but you forget about all the paranoia, that thing where you're saying, 'Oh gosh, I'm on stage - what am I going to do now ?' - Then you go into this other thing, and it turns out to be like almost like a play in certain ways

I'm addicted to those moments when you're on stage and the audience is so quiet you could hear a pin drop and you realize that you're in communion. That's an incredible experience. That's a cosmic experience, as far as I'm concerned, without getting way out there.

I was very dramatic as a kid. I loved to entertain. I was taking my bathing suits and painting them black and putting sparkles on them because I thought I was going to be on stage.

I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion.

I also think there's something about dance, music and the arts that transcends all other types of communication and expression.

Acting keeps me alert to people, and life. I don't know, there's something about going to work early in the morning, and having to stay alert and concentrated. Maybe that keeps your mind alive.

Being a dancer I've got the idea that through discipline and hard work, you can develop the ability to be in a different dimension within seconds. You can be vomiting, you can detest who you are, detest the world, detest every single thing, and the next moment you are in the light and you glow. You forget everything, and you are just flying. When you're onstage, you are someone else. Beyoncé is very conscious of this. She said to me, "I'm another person when I'm onstage." And I said, "Oh yes, you are! You are an animal when you are onstage. You are a stage animal."

I call it 'new forms'. When you're starting out, they ask you to do four or five minute sets, but once you're a headliner, you do like 90 minutes. I try to think of different things to divvy up the show, like doing drawings, playing music... I gotta carry the show, that's the problem.

Going on stage and transcending the audience and becoming this otherworldly thing makes you a dancer. It's not so black and white.

All the words are already there when you're singing onstage, it's fantastic. You can lose yourself in what you've created. You're controlling this freedom.

I love being part of a group who tells stories, whether it be in the theater or in cinema, and I love creating imaginary worlds rather as children do, but I never had a burning desire to act, but it just sort of suited me.

Recording wasn't as important to me as actually being to get on stage and act the fool.

When I'm working, on stage, entertaining people, or watching someone do something amazing, it inspires me to be the best artist that I can be. I enjoy being around art - whether it be a museum, a Broadway show - or even writing a poem. Those are things that make me feel alive and inspire me.

Artists are most themselves when they are out of their minds, transcending the ego skirmishes of conceptual thought, and intuitively relinquishing control to the greater Creator

I love to act, I love to sing and I love to entertain, so if I am passionate about a certain project and I want to do it, I hope to stretch my acting skills.

If a certain activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.

For me, it’s like playing the same instrument but in a different context. TV work – it’s really about getting it just right. You have a chance to try again if it’s not. Theatre is like playing a rock show. It doesn’t really matter if you make a tiny mistake. It’s the whole vibe and getting people to feel you. It’s about carrying the moment through all the way with you in an hour and 20 minutes of the narrative.

As professional actors, it's our job to entertain our audiences while setting benchmarks for ourselves as well, creatively and intellectually.