Jim Piddock Quotes

You must plan to be spontaneous.

I know some writers are meticulous planners, but I'm not one of them.

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

I like to think that we've got a plan, so let's stick to it. That said, once we've stuck to it, we're allowed as much improvisation as anyone cares to indulge themselves in.

Do I have a long-term plan? Kind of. I have a general direction, I think. But it's funny what comes down the pike.

Boxing is a lot of preparation and then improvising, so there are parallels to being an actor.

With 'Silver Linings,' I didn't feel - I was thinking of certain things, but I just said, 'Let me go with it.' You have to know what you're doing, where you're going with the scenes, and I put a lot of work into that. But when you're out there, at the same time you gotta be ready for anything.

I'm not one to dwell on rehearsal or preparation.

I research every part thoroughly. I talk it out with my actor friends, but then I throw it all away when I get to the set. You have to be spontaneous.

The producers who wanted me to do it liked me and trusted me, and more than one scene was only one take, because I'd plan ahead what I thought would be appropriate for that scene-so one take was enough.

The day before I work, I don't like to even look at the script and let whatever happens happen on the set. But I do prepare a lot. I'm a big believer in that.

Unless life is one giant rap battle, you don't need to freestyle your way to success.

I do find that there's a fine balance between preparation and seeing what happens naturally.

The main thing is strategy. It's not just come in and duke it out and fight.

You have to be simultaneously well-prepared and spontaneous. You don't really know for sure what percentage of the preparation you are going to use, and you don't know exactly where it will apply. So you have to be prepared, but not locked into that preparation.

You're better off not preparing, because what you prepare will always be wrong.

It may seem like improv because it flows quite naturally, and a little bit of leeway for improvisation is good, but you have to be judicious with it. So it's good, but sometimes people deify it. You can't improvise your way out of a paper hat.

Sometimes people don't rehearse at all, but you might have had a chance to rehearse for a few days, or even more than that. Then in the moment when the camera's running is the only time it matters. So whatever you've discussed or thought about or discussed with the director, the other actors, hopefully there's a part of the experience that you've left open so that only in that moment the camera catches it. That's of course the hardest thing to do because everything is planned and you have thought about it in advance.

Method is the arithmetic of success.

I never wanted to show up and just say, "Okay, what are we doing today? Let's wing it!"

Basketball is an intricate, high-speed game filled with split-second, spontaneous decisions. But that spontaneity is possible only when everyone first engages in hours of highly repetitive and structured practice--perfecting their shooting, dribbling, and passing and running plays over and over again--and agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court. This is the critical lesson of improve, too, and it is also a key to understanding a puzzle of Millennium Challenge: spontaneity isn't random.

I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, "It may appear that I'm going to go haywire, but I'm not." I always map out what I'm going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.

A lot of the things that other people from outside the business would see as crazy or strange are just a natural part of the working process. Preparation is key, and detail and collaboration are the rule, but no matter how many hours you spend preparing, there's always something.

It ain't like football. You can't make up no trick plays.

Over prepare, then go with the flow.