Phyllida Lloyd Quotes

You can watch someone on-stage cry and cry - but in the audience you feel nothing. It's easy to become indulgent. For me, what's important is the story first.

It doesn't matter how beautifully a film is photographed. The acting tells your story. It's what people relate to. If you don't believe the characters, it doesn't work.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.

Inside of all the makeup and the character and makeup, it's you, and I think that's what the audience is really interested in... you, how you're going to cope with the situation, the obstacles, the troubles that the writer put in front of you.

With films, you completely immerse yourself in a character, get into who they are, live it and then release it.

When you go to the theater, if you're really involved in the play, you don't think about it - you're in it.

My job is to focus on bringing characters to life in an honest and personal way.

It was a big deal to me to play characters and feel things and connect to somebody in a fake world.

Acted drama requires surrender of one's self, sympathetic absorption in the play as it develops.

As an actor, you really want to resonate with your audience.

If you're good enough to play a role with emotion and universal human elements, then you'll get others coming to you.

I'm able to look the person acting across from me and respond to that. There are times when it becomes so lonely and painful, but I think I'm able to overcome them because I realize that the more fiercely you prepare for a role, the more the audience can feel it.

It's why we're actors: to be able to tell the stories that really matter.

The beauty of theater is that you get to live the character from beginning to end without stopping. The natural momentum of the story propels you through in such a way that feels organic.

I think that acting involves doing your job so well that you are able to help the viewer identify with the character.

Acting and singing are actually very similar because they're both telling a story.

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.

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

I like it when I go into a cinema and I'm not aware that I'm there; I'm totally involved in the film for two hours.

I'd love to star in dark drama that audiences could really relate to.

I like to disappear in the parts I play.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

I've never liked watching real-life couples play couples onscreen or onstage. It takes me out of the story.

In terms of the character itself, I can't really say that I find anything really difficult. I enjoy the character so much I don't perceive difficulty in trying to be him. It's just a matter of how do we get there.