Gregory Hines Quotes

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

The one thing for an actor that is complete death is if you're bored, because that boredom will show in your work.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I found acting tough; it takes a lot out of you if you have no technique.

Now that was one thing, but from an actor's point of view, this poor young man, crying from the moment I opened the door to the moment he left. Now if an actor did that they would say he's over-acting.

In theater, the wellspring of the character comes from the doing of it, like a trial by fire, but in front of an audience.

The weird thing about acting is you're the most competent when you're at your best, but you have to be validated.

To be a good actor you have to feel life and observe life.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

What's beautiful about the actual acting class environment is that you can use it to push through everything: push your voice, push your inhibitions, push your fears, push your confidence, push your vulnerability, push your silences.

I don't have an 'actor cry.'

I think the best dramatic actors know how to tap into their character's humor.

Now that I'm acting, I've realized that I don't have a lot of barriers. Certain actors have a hard time with anger or with joy or with whatever, and, I don't know, I don't seem to have those barriers.

I went to theater school where there is a lot of holding each other's faces and crying, and a lot of kid gloves.

'Freaky Ali' may look like an easy role to others, but it is not easy.

Actresses cannot have any inhibitions while portraying bold characters. It is something that we learn on the first page of the book on acting.

'Heirs' became an emotional experience for me. I had a hard time bringing out my emotions in the series. I used all my physical and emotional energy to bring out all that acting.

I lack confidence as an actor.

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

For the actors, the talent is to serve the demands that I ask of them, to do it with naturality and truth, and to be honest when we were terrified.

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.

With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.

Improv definitely made me a better auditioner, without a doubt. We did do an audition semester in grad school, and that was helpful for those times that you have a script and you have a few days to prepare it, to really work on sides. But the auditions I was doing in New York, if you got it the night before, you were very lucky.