Nicolas Cage Quotes

When I was a dancer, I was acting.

I've always believed that the facts about dancing are more interesting than the myths, and this was a great chance for me to explore how the human body does such incredible things.

It's one of my strongest dance pieces - having just done Play Without Words which was veering away from a lot of dance - I thought it would be nice to go back to something with almost the most dance I'd done.

Action choreographer is like talking. When you talk, you have a rhythm. When you act, you have a rhythm. When you're moving your body, you have a rhythm. So as an actor, as a choreographer, the objective is trying to blend everything in - into - ultimately back into that character.

It's something that I learned even before I started acting: the movement, the dance of the body, is very important, and it comes before words.

I am dancing all the time. Every gesture, the body line of every pose, the way I get from place to place, the movement in the acting - none of it would be the way it is if I weren't a dancer.

I realised how important it is to have your body movement, your diction, tonality, dialogue delivery and to be in rhythm because everything is musical.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.

An actor's body should be full of emotions, whether it is happiness or sorrow, pain or joy, enraged or elated.

I was performing in this burlesque group, and we would go to dance rehearsals every day. You'd use every part of your body. Even though some of it is slow, it takes a lot of muscle to be able to dip down and come back up.

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don't really like. I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically.

When it comes to acting, you really have to create movement which in some ways is dancing. And dancing, I feel is very important to act as well. I wouldn't put one over the other.

I used to be a dancer, and for me it was a really good combination of dance and acting.

For me, as an actress, being a dancer has helped me. I've done it with my feet bloody.

I have rhythm, but I'm not a trained dancer.

To be a good actor, you need to be able to emote with your body.

My first love is acting, but dancing comes naturally to me.

I am more expressive when I dance.

I do use my body a lot, to click into a character.

I was a dancer before I was an actress, so I've always been someone who likes to communicate from my body and movement.

You have to learn to express differently. Whenever I do TV or film, I ask if I can see the shot to see, to see if it's full body or a close-up. That helps me understand how to communicate.

You learn to control every aspect of your muscles, your face, your toes, your fingernails. And that is how you tell a story, through movement.

My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.

When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.