Roger Allam Quotes

What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That's the way I always work.

I always know my lines.

You can never know your lines well enough, and you better listen.

The only set thing I do is that I really, really memorize the lines. I've gotta be so comfortable with the words.

I never found it easy to learn my lines. It was slog, slog, slog.

I'm always trying to memorize lines, whether I understand them or not.

I used to learn my lines on the toilet, in the car, at dinner.

When preparing for auditions, I have no rituals. I just try to be as prepared as possible.

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

It's nice when someone knows their lines.

I learn the whole script before I show up.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

Memorizing dialogue has always come easy and quickly to me. My wife Eileen is also very helpful. She gives me choices, and asks me questions, and runs my lines with me.

I think my best teacher and my best study was theater in general. It taught me a lot of patience and a lot of hard work, and I think that theater teaches you that you've got to know your stuff because you only get one chance.

When you're on TV, you're looking at a half-page of material, trying to memorize it really quickly. By the time it's on TV, I've already forgotten what I said, but I can still recite my whole role from Shakespeare in the Park. It works a different set of muscles.

I learn the lines and pray to God.

Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture.

I'm just always learning lines. I've learned to flag the really crucial scenes, and I start figuring them out and committing them to memory as soon as I get them.

It's fun finding your way to the performance instead of coming in and hoping to God you're impressing the director - and hoping you're delivering the lines right with no treatment beforehand.

Whenever I was done with a scene, I'd go back to my trailer, relax and go over my lines. I'd think, 'I can't wait to get out there.'

I'm so OCD about prep work and learning lines and stuff.

She [Susan Lucci] was extraordinary. She wouldn't look at the scene until you walked in to rehearse it. It was amazing to me. That's the impression I got anyway.

I just try to remember my lines most of the time.

Theater is a physical activity as much as anything. It's harder for me to learn the lines than it was 30 years ago. At the same time, I'll never quit working in the theater - until I can't memorize two lines back to back.

When you get to the point where you know the material so well and you know the character so well that you can just sort of play off of whoever your reader is - that's the best feeling at an audition.