Robin Williams Quotes

My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that.

From my experience working with comedians, there is that competitive aspect. With actors, for instance, they don't want to look competitive even if they are, whereas comedians, I think, are openly happy to play on the idea that they all compete with each other to get the laughs. There's something about comedy, I think, that encourages that. There's this kind of schoolboy sense of wanting to top the other person that we play off of to show them competing for who's smarter or cleverer.

When you're playing live, those people who you're trying to please and reach, they're right there giving you feedback. And you don't get that feedback in the studio.

You live through the play at 8 o'clock, straight through, and nobody can call "Cut!" But also with the stage you're getting instant reactions. You hear people snoring in the audience, and bored to tears, or sometimes you hear the laughter, and you can hear them listening.

TV's not the same buzz. If someone tells you three million people watched the show last week, that's good but, when you walk out in front of 1,000, you think, 'Oh my God, this had better be good'.

I don't feel comfortable doing movies. It's not what I trained to do. I trained to be a theater actress. You put me on a stage in front of 2,000 people, I know what to do.

I think a lot of people think that we [comedians] are nerveless people in the theatre, that we don't feel that kind of terror which traditionally anyone who has to do any public speaking feels. It's worse for actors, because our livelihood depends on it.

I much prefer the road. My thing is getting live in front of people. There is a sterile environment to a studio that doesn't make me let go.

I would love to do more on the stage; having actual contact with the audience is great. You can give them a good seeing to!

I'd say working on television is much, much tougher than films. But television has a great connect with a live audience, which is a refreshing change for us actors.

In the theatre, the actor is given immediate feedback.

Live stage is being made as you go along. You feel the energy. There's nothing like a live audience.

There's a relationship in the reality with how theater is presented - you can't experience that anywhere else. When you mess up, you mess up obviously, when you sweat, you sweat obviously, when you cry, you cry obviously. There's no hiding in theater.

For me, there's nothing more valuable as an actor, or better way to learn, than getting to perform in front of a live audience, no matter where you are. Whether it's on Broadway, in Florida, or doing a tour.

I think the best part for me is just being able to perform for people every week.

I like the adrenaline of live performance, whatever that is, appearing in front of an audience of any kind, whether it's one or a hundred or a thousand. It gives you a buzz of adrenaline, its exciting. The thing about that is that you want to make those nerves work for you in terms of an energy that's appropriate for the part and the performance, and not to distract the people who are watching so that they become nervous for you.

As comedians, we have the opportunity to convey a message that will have an effect. The best can make you laugh and cry, the way musicians and actors can.

I feel like you've gotta be able to get up every night in front of a live audience. Whether it's 10 people or 50 people or a hundred people, whether you're in a rock band or doing the comedy circuit.

My live performance, it just comes from feeling an energy and emotion from the crowd. Just going out there and doing my own stuff and being in front of my own people. I love it.

Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.

I always loved comedy, but I never knew it was something you could learn to do. I always thought that some people are born comedians ... just like some people are born dentists.

Every time I go out on a stage I consider myself very lucky. Because, in a time where people are economically thinking about what to go and see - so, when I am on a stage, and it doesn't matter where I am, that's my favorite show. I come home after and say "That was my favorite show".

For aspiring comedians? Don't listen to me. Just go on stage and do what you think is funny.

Just giving the people a great show, leaving it all on the stage. Like when I'm finished I don't want to go home with nothing, I want to leave it all there on the stage, that's what I'm thinking about before I hit the stage.

I always wanted to be a comedian and actor. I basically stumbled into the music medium, though. I'm OK, but that's about it. I like to think I'm good enough not to negatively affect the performance.