Gavin Bryars Quotes

What I've tried to do in my stage magic is to take a trick and give it an emotional hook.

For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.

The stage is suspension of disbelief. Film is a literal medium.

Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall.

I always make sure there's something for the audience to connect to, in terms of my movements relating to the sounds being heard.

An actor stands in front of a camera onstage, and he controls time and space for the audience. He tells them how long this will take, where to look, when to look, what to think about it. And good performers should be able to do their part with the sound off.

One of the reasons I don't like to use the word "tricks" , I do think of them as theatrical pieces, and as pretentious as that might sound, there's a real reason for it. It's not the idea of tricking you; it's the idea of taking you along on this particular journey the way you would in any other theatrical situation. But, hopefully, you're going to be fooled at the end.

Taking up the choreography for an awards night is completely different from choreographing a song for a film.

In a film, you only have a finite amount of time, and you're so concerned with saying what happened and making it a gripping short story with a satisfying ending.

Theatre is more metaphorical where you have to be louder and larger than life, whereas film is more subtle and more real.

I love theatre because of the audience. It feels risky. But I love film because it travels to the whole world. To an audience I don't see.

I work on my technique, but when I do a video, I want people to be amazed by the speed or the power. The casual fans don't care if your hands are up or your hands are down.

I like to entertain all kinds of audiences with my films.

Of course theater will always be associated intimately to literature, but the themes or whatever have to penetrate you by the senses. Theater is a sensuous experience, and that's its main difference from film or any other dramatic art.

A long-running show leaves behind a legacy of storytellers and their relationship with the audience.

It's why we're actors: to be able to tell the stories that really matter.

Film as a medium has a power that sports like wrestling lack.

There are two kinds of films: the ones that are devoid of logic but can still hijack the audience, and those that can win them over with logic. Both kinds can succeed, and I like to work in both.

Movie, being an art form, should have artistic value and should do justice to the artistes.

Every film is a journey.

A lot of cinema is about the game of authenticity - do you feel it's real?

Theatre is a more difficult visual medium than films. You need to hold the attention span of the audience without goofing up and be able to express yourself as vividly as possible.

Music is more than words. It's a visual experience, too, and people really feel my music because of the way I move and put on a show.

What has started to interest me is how you use all the different disciplines and tools we have at our disposal, and that includes going into different art forms, like music and movement, because often they can tap into things that characters can't necessarily express through words. Audiences really enjoy that total experience.

I like to have fun with my videos and performances, that's the most fun part when it comes to the music. I get to show off my character.