Paul Dano Quotes

I'm a geeky actor, in the way that I like the craft of acting. I trained as a stage actor and was given a lot of technical tools to play with. I like the craft of acting. It sounds geeky when I say it, but it's true.

I consider theater, this is a vacation for me from LA, I sort of view this as I get to have this vacation and during my vacation I get to work on acting. It's like an acting class. And if I go too long without doing a play, I just feel empty. Like approaching a role, I feel like the pool is very shallow, like I'm drawn from it. So I need to come back and do a play, fortunately I've been able to, every couple of years.

I have a background in theater, so I have experience with actors. I like actors - I used to be one.

Uta Hagen is our greatest living actor; she is, moreover, interested and mystified by the presence of talent and its workings; her third gift is a passion to communicate the mysteries of the craft to which she has given her life. There are almost no American actors uninfluenced by her.

I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.

I started in community theater at 7 years old. I loved being on stage and performing. At the time, I didn't correlate that the stuff I was doing on stage was the same thing that I was watching in my favorite films.

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.

I am forever grateful that I got some training in the theater - it reduces performance anxiety.

I did so much theater, where everybody I worked with was so much better than me, that I just sort of learned.

I had to get used to the theater atmosphere because I haven't had a role on Broadway since Aida. It was a different process from day one because I was learning my parts by myself.

Only do acting, if you don't want to do anything else. And know that it's a tough journey with a lot of rejection along the way. You have to have a lot of self-belief.

In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way.

It's actually easier to play a leading role than it is to play a supporting role.

In theater, there's a lot of discipline involved in doing eight shows a week for a year and a half. It's nice to be able to bring some of that bag of tools with you over to the film world, where you don't have the rehearsal, you don't have an audience. You don't have a month of rehearsal to examine these words, and you meet the guy who's going to play your brother the morning that you shoot the scene. So you need a bag of tools.

I've always wanted to be an actor. I didn't get into this game to be the best improviser in the world. I didn't choose improv as a stepping stone, it just happened to become one.

I studied theater in college, and I really wanted to be an actress and play a lot of different roles. Then I made landing on a television comedy my main focus. But when you become an actress, you want to play a variety of things.

I love actors, regardless of where they are in their skill level. There's something terribly satisfying about working with someone who's really learning.

I don't feel like I properly started acting until I did my first play, 'Tusk, Tusk.'

I had never auditioned for Broadway - any play - and I was not familiar with what you're supposed to do.

I think in any form of acting, you're always well served if you've done theater.

I first wanted to be an actress after seeing a play - not a movie.

It was a wonderful experience to live the life for a year; to spend all day doing Shakespeare and then do a play in the evening.

Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.

I played Romeo when I was younger, and I think I did a couple kind Romeo-like parts after that, and I kind of went, 'I mustn't do this again. I must always choose something that I don't know if I'm a good enough actor to play.'

I was an actor for over a year before I ever saw a play.