Roisin Murphy Quotes

After doing the first couple scenes and I got used to being in front of a few people it got easier and easier. In Chasing Amy, I wasn't nervous at all. And in Dogma, the same.

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.

I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.

A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time.

I think the first table read I ever did, my hand was vibrating the whole time.

While I'm acting, I'm a professional, and then I don't break into cold sweat for whatsoever reason.

I can't say I'm confident in my abilities as an actor.

Once, and only once, I walked on stage and my mind went utterly blank! I had no idea why I was there! My fellow actors had to rescue me. I was very young and new to the business, so I'm glad it didn't give me stage fright for the rest of my life!

I did Shakespeare in college and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.'

I'm a very shy person, and I never tried to do theater. I've been asked many, many times by the most incredible authors in America to do theater. And I always said no, not knowing what it is to be on the stage and to do theater.

I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.

I need to do more on stage. I've got to get my fix!

People ask me, 'How do you remember your lines?' That's nothing. That is the least of my concerns.

I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.

I normally feel relief that I didn't die onstage or forget all my lines. Then I start remembering that I have to do it again sometime, and it'll probably not go as well.

Sometimes a scene works and acting is the easiest thing in the world and you don't have to do much of anything - just enjoy yourself and listen to the other actor. When it doesn't work, then every actor has different ways of dealing with the impasse. Sometimes you use memories from the past. Whatever. It depends from job to job.

I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, but every time I show up on set it still feels like the first time.

I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense.

I remember that Jack Lemmon, who is one of my favorite actors of all time, says that the day he stops being nervous is the day he should leave the business.

The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

Thankfully, I have a background as an actor, and you learn how to live in that world of not knowing what's going to happen next.

I like doing small parts, because I don't feel I'm that practised in acting. It's like making baby steps towards a bigger goal.

The more I act, the harder it gets, since I feel like I still have so much to learn. Whenever I embark on a new project, it always feels like the first time. If it were easy to me and I felt like I knew everything, my acting might have been different. I think the feeling of 'newness' keeps me on my toes and concentrated.

For the first time I go to La Scala, for each thing, for each rehearsal, my knees were shaking. But the audience was very fine with me.

I've always loved acting, even from when I was a child. But when I got on stage, I realised I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag. I was wild and full of unharnessed energy, but I was around all these seasoned performers like Rita Cullis. It was as if they were all in slow motion.