Everett McGill Quotes

Comedians like to see people smile. With acting, I love giving people a feeling, an emotion. I like to give people a feeling. When they come away from my scene, I want them to think.

I feel so much feedback in a very profound way from the 10,000 people who are listening to me, watching me. I just get this deep sense of what works and what doesn't work.

When I'm singing, I can see so many people, and I can see their response and everything. And being somewhere like the Hollywood Bowl, I'm seeing those immediate people in front of me, but other than that, it's just dots, and I'm just imagining who's out there and imagining their responses.

When I bring my music to a live audience, I know right away whether it is being appreciated or not.

It doesn't matter what age you are, an effective song will move you.

When you're on stage, the audience becomes your other half. It's the ultimate high you can reach as a musician - an incredible feeling. And no matter where I am it's still the same; there's a reason we call music the universal language.

A lot of times, as an actor, especially a TV or film actor, you don't get a lot of interaction, or you don't get the feeling you are actually touching someone, or someone actually cares about what you do.

When you put the musical in front of an audience, you get to see how the audience reacts.

When you're a storyteller, part of the process of storytelling is the kind of communion you form with the audience to whom you're telling your story. If some segment of the audience doesn't like that story, it doesn't feel good.

I think of my songs as there to be something to move people emotionally.

Every crowd is different. But that's something that I enjoy, and you can feel it in the first few seconds when you walk out on stage. You know, how a crowd is.

No one - apart from my agent, perhaps - should leave one of my shows in tears.

I like to feel that something's alive in acting, like something's really going on.

I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor.

Words are only as good as the response to those words.

I am a very active audience member. I want to be moved. I want to be confronted. I want to feel.

Music is a great catalyst for emotion because it gets to your core.

Songs I do have to strike an emotional chord the first time I sing them.

I hear singers on a daily basis and there are some who really end up touching your heart.

You look out into the audience and you see so much joy on people's faces. You make eye contact with people who are almost crying because they can't believe they're seeing the Rumours five back again, they can't believe their eyes. It's almost like a family reunion on stage, there's no angst, there's no animosity, there's just tremendous amount of friendship.

One of the things I love about acting is other actors, looking into their eyes, and working off them, and listening and responding to them.

The thing I miss about performing is being with people.

Action is drama. If we cannot make the audience laugh, smile or cry with us, we are not actors.

I write things in my house, and hopefully there's a reader out there who enjoys it and has an experience with it, but that's very different than a performer on stage, where there's an immediate dance with the audience. It's incredibly powerful.

All I can say is if the part doesn't delight me in some way, or I can't feel any compassion for it, I just can't do it.