Lapsley Quotes

I don't think one should be comfortable standing on a stage with people applauding and laughing at every stupid thing you say.

I'm not that bothered about press nights as an actor or, particularly, by what people say about me, because I see myself as a reasonably small cog.

I am uncomfortable judging people, as we - members of the film fraternity - are judged more than anybody else.

I haven't read a single word that a critic has written about me since 1994.

There's a pressure regardless of that to do a good show.

One of the hardest things to do in acting is to stop thinking about yourself and stop being self-conscious.

I found at an early age the times when I learned the most about myself was when I got thrown out there on a stage in front of a microphone when you didn't really want to be out there, where you're kind of afraid.

On stage, you have to have incredible confidence, or you would stop doing it. But I don't think I will ever get to the point where I go, 'I know exactly what I am doing,' and I don't think I want to.

I think that if you're doing a new musical, you want to have the opportunity to experiment and try things without the whole city of critics looking over your shoulder.

I think the challenge is going out in front of a paying audience with absolutely nothing and trying to entertain them for two hours. Thankfully, I only think about that right before we go on, and then once we're out there, everything's fine.

But that's the problem with playing new music sometimes before the record comes out: You have a bunch of yayhoots with opinions.

Being an actress, I find myself people-watching and I can be quite shy.

I just would like to keep singing. As soon as I'm not singing well, I hope that I know it, so that I can get off the stage and leave what I have done. I hope I'll know, and if I don't, I hope somebody tells me.

Preconceived judgments. I think we're all guilty of it. I judge other people even though I get judged myself. It's such a disease and gets spread so much through social media.

You have not quite lived in this ridiculously silly celebrity culture until you've been told one day how loved you are and the next day how hated you are - and sometimes by the same individual.

There's something scary about acting always, because basically you do all this work in a vacuum, and then suddenly there's a lot of money spent making a film, and there's suddenly a camera here, going, 'Right? What are you gonna do?'

All actors are self-critical.

I am always interested in making myself as uncomfortable as I can. Sometimes I ask myself, 'Can I stand onstage and sing this song and sell it?' Sometimes I can't. In a room, you get to pretend a little bit and step outside of yourself.

I prefer it when I can intimidate the audience rather than the audience intimidate me. I've been lucky in my career to have both.

A lot of things have been said about me. People are going to talk, and that's a good thing; I want people to talk.

One think that you notice about anyone that gets up on stage is that they don't really have a lot of self-awareness. It's kind of a trait that performers don't have because you just kinda just have to let go and do whatever you want to do on stage.

I can't speak for anybody else but myself 'cause I usually get in trouble when I speak for other people, so I've learned my lesson not to do that, but for me, I've been known to pace for quite a while when I walk onstage, and that's just because I'm becoming one with my shell.

That's the thing: when I'm on stage, I don't care; there could be ten people there, there could be ten million people there. But if I'm offstage, I'm, like, counting the people. I know exactly where everyone's standing, how far they are from me.

I stand on stage hoping to give good energy to the audience, but if I cannot give good energy anymore, I will have to leave right away.

I feel like it's harder to perform in front of a smaller crowd sometimes still than it is a larger crowd.