Denis Lavant Quotes

I learned mime back when I was in college, at Ball State University, Indiana. That woke up my body from the neck down and made me realize that acting and communication - portraying a story, event, or emotion - is a full-body experience.

I've always got into stunts; even at drama school, I was falling down trap doors, and swinging in on ropes.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.

I've had over a dozen models come in and pose fro me live for these new Cirque pieces. Cirque is a world-wide phenomenon and they are just incredible athletes. I've been to all the performances and am really fascinated by all of their productions.

I've always been a figure skater and ballet dancer. I love physical comedy, and any chance that I get to do that... that is so me.

I started under my master, Etienne Decroux, who taught me a new grammar for mime he called statuary mime. This grammar brings style creations. Without it, no art survives.

Just like music, I consider wrestling to be an art form, and I have a vision of what that art should look like.

They say pantomime's a lost art. It's never been a lost art and never will be, because it's too natural to do.

For many years, I did pantomime with Marcel Marceau. I was a writer for him and got to know very well how to use the body for illustration. I wanted to do a mother without arms, but using the arms of her son in Santa Sangre. The tragedy should always have something funny. Something weird.

I had never really done voice-over. If you've ever seen me, I'm more the communicator through body language and movement... I'm a physical actor.

I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.

With dancing, so much is about sexuality and sensuality and without life experience it becomes much more of a performance, rather than a living, breathing entity from the soul.

My mother was a dancer, so I like to use the body as part of the instrument of acting.

I used to fly around the stage without strings or camera tricks. That took seven years to create.

My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.

Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.

I think a lot of people don't realize that martial arts are just an expression like anything else. It's just that most people are not trained to punch or kick, but you can walk or run or dance, which is also part of expression.

To me, acting is acting... I'd be happy working on a street corner in a mime troupe.

It's one of my strongest dance pieces - having just done Play Without Words which was veering away from a lot of dance - I thought it would be nice to go back to something with almost the most dance I'd done.

Action choreographer is like talking. When you talk, you have a rhythm. When you act, you have a rhythm. When you're moving your body, you have a rhythm. So as an actor, as a choreographer, the objective is trying to blend everything in - into - ultimately back into that character.

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don't really like. I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically.

When you step back and watch people, you realize that we use every single body part. Movement, dance - I find it genius because it's ultimate expression, really.

Well, I had an immense respect for Cirque du Soleil when I first say them in the '80s on a television show and just thought, you know, this group is really reinventing the circus, as you know. Because there wasn't three rings. There were no animals.

Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own.