Kenny Leon Quotes

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

I believe that acting in any medium is the same thing, it's discovering the truth in where you are.

With acting, there's a certain amount of independence you have within the framework of the storytelling. When it's done well, it's a collaborative medium.

I have always believed that an artiste needs to respond to a story first. One has to feel it in order to live it.

I'm a director's actor, and I surrender myself to the vision and the process. I think nothing else matters then.

When you're in a good play and a good production, you find that you're in something that has a life beyond you. You think, 'Oh my goodness, this play's alive.'

Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.

I think as a filmmaker and as a director, you shortchange yourself if you inhibit the ability of your actor to bring their own personal experiences to the characters.

I'm always amazed when any actor can decipher my direction.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

There's a tremendous amount to be gained from being a performer, and being an artist, and being an actor.

The way I like to work is to attach personal experiences to what I'm doing, so it helps tremendously if I can write my own play under what the writer has written.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

The stage is like a laboratory where you can run theatrical experiments, imposing interesting conditions on the cast or story and seeing how they pan out. Each new play is like creating a tiny virtual universe enclosed by the confines of the stage.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

I've never so appreciated what actors do and how strange it is.

Theater is a living creature. It takes a while to break in, like a new pair of shoes.

I became fascinated by the fact that you could translate written material into performance.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

Actors are investigators.

I'm an actor and my job is to interpret.

Acting is about animality. It's great to be allowed to be animal. But I feel more alive as a director. Every morning, I have to write.