Constantin Stanislavski Quotes

You hand the baton on, and that's why roles like 'Medea' resonate for years and years, as each new actor comes to it.

When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.

I'm a dramatist.

It's fatal to talk about acting. It sounds faintly ridiculous if you start analysing it.

When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused.

Acting is like any other art form, in that you have the option to go very big or go very small.

I actually did Shakespeare when I was at North Carolina School of the Arts. I studied with Gerald Freedman and Mary Irwin - it was fun; I enjoyed it.

When I do my job, I dive into these characters and try to flush something out of myself into these characters, and hopefully that translates well.

Before I was a mother, when I played characters that were mothers, I used my imagination, of course.

I think acting is a work of imagination.

You've always got to have an imagination in the game we're in but it explodes on this. You get to try the costumes on before you start and feel the weight of them, which is great. But then you're opposite some of the greatest actors in the world and away you go. You find your imagination takes over without you really even thinking about it.

I like auditioning. I like working on material. I just love working.

I made some shorts that I'm not in. I think because I write so many short stories, it's not that hard to come up with characters that are not me. But my way into making movies has been through performing. My very first short film, I played a child and her own mother. So in some ways, to me, my great achievement so far is just that I've gotten all these other people to play the other parts. That's what makes it a real movie.

I really miss the rehearsal process of theater.

I think Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet' would be my favorite role. I've never played it, but I would love to do it.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

I always loved acting and improv and sketch comedy and theater, which I did at a local youth theater.

I went to drama school for three years, and the whole thing there is that hopefully you are introduced to a man called William Shakespeare who is the greatest of all time of all storytelling.

In theater, there's a lot of work to do to build the characters. It's a great experience.

I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.

As a child, I was always interested in drama and performance.

I get very competitive, mostly in acting though. When I'm going out for a role or something, that's when I really get very territorial about things.

I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing.

I've done a lot of things with theater that I'm very, very proud of.

Well, you know, I played Mufasa in the workshop of The Lion King.