Constantin Stanislavski Quotes

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

The trick [in comedy] is always to figure out how real you're playing it and how real it's supposed to feel. That's a hard thing to figure out.

There is no overacting, only untrue acting.

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

I just sing the stuff that makes me smile, makes me feel like I didn't sell myself out.

I have to own something before I can say it, and I have to own it before I can sing it as well, emotionally. I only enjoy acting and singing if I am believing what I am doing.

I lose myself in my performances so I wouldn't say that I ever act on stage. I don't find it to be an acting drill for me. I just find it to be something very real that comes from a very gut-driven, honest place.

A true artist should have no secrets. On the stage, you must be able to transmit every emotion to the spectator.

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes.

It always felt like you were trying too hard to look like the audience or something. That whole thing about the artistic integrity, which, of course, I've never bought into - with any artist. It's just not a real thing.

Weirdly enough, I don't like to pretend. I try to use things in me, and translate them into the situation and the characters, so it always needs to run through my own veins.

When I go into making a movie, personally, I don't try to bring other pieces of movies with me. I think that finding a character, relating to her and making her as real as possible means forgetting all of that stuff and just trying to find the truth, in that particular character's words.

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. Be a man before being an artist!

I've never been that person to fake it, and say what everyone else wants you to say. Then you never have anything personal. If I wanted to be an actress all the time, I could do that. But I don't. I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That's what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there's nothing.

For me, making a lot of dramas on one side it's a different sort of challenge, and on the other, it's not a challenge at all, meaning that my goal is to try and bring the realism and acting you might find in a straight drama with the intentions and conflict, where it doesn't feel tongue-in-cheek, but rather committed and real.

I don't do all of this as an indulgence. I do it because I'm not a good enough actor to not do it.

The core of the film is usually something very emotional and something that feels really real that you can relate to, it's not like done in a false way. You know a lot of films will treat emotion falsely and you can sense that very quickly.

I think "artistic" simply means there's more of the creator in the thing. Whether it's painting or song or movie or game, the creator puts more of themselves into the piece, so when the audience see it, they feel something real, they feel something human, they feel something that's like a person.

Being comedic is a skill, because there is a fine line where the context is important. And being dramatic is just being honest and real in that moment.

The music is mine. Theres nothing to hide behind. Thats where you see the real person.

It makes me sad when I see artists who come alive when they go onstage, because, gee, I really come alive when I'm home.

Every artist's strictly illimitable country is himself. An artist who plays that country false has committed suicide; and even a good lawyer cannot kill the dead. But a human being who's true to himself - whoever himself may be - is immortal; and all the atomic bombs of all the antiartists in spacetime will never civilize immortality.

It's so great as an actor to get the opportunity to do something that's incredibly truthful.

If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.

I don't want people walking out of a movie thinking I was trying to act or be some movie star. I want them to think, 'That might make me like Jessica a little bit more.'