Kim Harrison Quotes

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

Music actually inspires me a lot. I listen to a lot of music, and often I find that if I can associate mentally a song or a piece of music with a particular character or scene, it helps me get back into the head of that character.

It's all about the mood I'm in and the scene I'm writing. 'Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don't listen to any music that's not an influence on what I'm working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.

I cannot live or write without music. It stimulates the normally dormant parts of my brain that come in handy when constructing fiction.

When you have the cast, the sets, the lights, an opera takes on its own life. I'm not one of those directors who marches in with a set of plans.

Music is a lot more like solving an intricate puzzle with moments of pure, random creative bliss... whereas painting is much more purely random creative bliss with moments of problem solving.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

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.

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

I am inspired just by the way a scene can be interpreted by the actors. It can make a huge difference on the type of music that you write. It's best for me if I don't work at all on a project until the movie is shot and I have some sort of edit in front of me.

I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It's either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there's always a buzzing beneath you.

I just happened to start playing music for the conceptual ideas.

I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I never took music lessons. I was just playing around in front of the mirror and being silly, then suddenly I started making songs.

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

Many times, when a director reads a script and wants somebody who says 'Far out', then they let me do what I want with it and that's usually more interesting for an actor.

I've always used music for my acting, and I do have a kind of a very personal play list that I create.

My greatest fear is feeling like a professional novelist. Somebody who creates characters, who sits down and has pieces of paper taped to the wall - what's going to happen in this scene, or this act. What I like is for it to be a much more scary, sloppy reflection of who I am.

Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

Before college, I acted in my room, to classical music, because music tells stories. I'd put on a record and proceed, silently. I'd keep putting the needle back to a certain segment because I hadn't died well enough. I had to really, really feel dead. I'd love to do a death scene.

I'll look at the script and I'll try to find as many books, movies, and pieces of music that I think are going to feed each scene or the character as a whole.

Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

I can't act without music very well.

As a composer, I know that all sorts of sounds I hear are making their way into my brain and soul and later sneak into my music.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.