Katori Hall Quotes

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

I love TV now, and 'Modern Family,' but what draws me back to theater is that initial instinct of wanting to be a theater actor. I love the challenge of starting a play and not stopping until you finish. I love the immediacy of trusting your instincts.

It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

You've got to love acting and that's true for me. I love the idea of getting on stage and getting in front of a camera.

I think more than anything, you should do what you love. If you love classical playwrights, seek out companies or places that are doing that. If you love modern playwrights, try to find groups who are writing new plays or working on new plays. If you love television, watch as much theater and film as you can.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

Acting on stage is still my favorite thing to do. And everyone who's been in musicals knows that there is nothing more fun.

Good plays drive bad playgoers crazy.

It's important to listen to the actor who is there on the stage and living it.

I'm a big believer in keeping the stage directions really tight.

I was always the first person in the theater all the time. If it was an eight-o'clock curtain, I was here at five-thirty, and it wasn't that I needed to vocalize, because I was all warmed up. I couldn't wait for it to begin.

When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.

Staging any play is very exposing because, if you are going to do it well, you have to put so much of yourself into it.

Good actors can tell you more about your play than 1,000 hours alone at your desk.

I always like to do serious plays.

I'm someone who started in the theater and really couldn't stand repeating the show. My favorite part of acting is the five or six weeks of rehearsal that you get. I like doing previews; I like the opening week because my friends and family come, and then after that, I don't want to do it anymore.

I have written before, but I was primarily an actor and improvisational performer.

I really did always want to do theater.

There's something about getting onstage in a play where the actor tells the story, beginning, middle, and end, the way they want to tell it. For me, it's the most powerful place to be, and it's the most empowering place to be.

I'm an actor of the theater.

As an actress who has performed in theater for over 17 years, my experience performing in 'The Color Purple' has been a truly life-changing journey.

Acting is an emotion which has to be felt. Some feel it, some don't!

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that play. The playwright, the actors and the audience, that's what we're all there seeking. When it's working, time is destroyed. Sometimes 'Moon,' a play of four hours, would go by in a snap of the fingers.

I was offered a part in the stage version of 'Calendar Girls,' but the part is so predictable. It just makes me angry when I read the script.

I want to expand what I do and definitely focus a little more in the acting, theater world.