Tahar Rahim Quotes

The hardest thing is that I never do anything the same way twice, and when I'm on the air, I'm very unscripted, and I'm very comfortable in that role. So me being scripted is not a comfortable place for me.

I just go with the flow, so any style can be in my music - that makes it exciting.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

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.

I used to be very rigid because I just wanted to get through it. Now, if I think a scene should go a certain way and it goes another, I'm able to go that new way with ease.

I still approach a scene as one would approach a solo. There's nothing set or pat.

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

I don't plan an awful lot in life just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction.

I use a Bruce Lee technique: 'The way of no way.' He had the idea that he would learn everything, so that whoever he had to fight, he could improvise anything. The best way of starting a gig is just to not think of anything - to clear your mind, not in an empty Zen state, but more just to go on and see where you go.

Sometimes you don't want to get married too much to a lot of rehearsing, I feel, when it comes to film, because there's so many technicalities. So if I'm in my head, I've gotten settled on something, I'm gonna have to change it if I get there and something was set that's completely different.

I'm always surprised at what I actually end up doing because I don't have a strategy or a game plan, especially now that I'm making my own choices.

But I just think we've got such a continuity with what we're doing that most people come in and fill in the blanks. And sometimes we leave a lot of blanks to be filled.

I film quite a bit of footage, then edit. Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always 'let it keep rolling.'

I like to work spontaneously.

The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You're allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.

There is no facet of my professional life that doesn't require or request improvisation.

You can't always go by the book, even in comedy.

I like to be sort of grounded with Fish. But, at the same time, I think probably what's unique about us is the way other dynamics happen, where I'll play off Trey for awhile. When we start playing a jam, I don't usually know what's going to happen, I don't have a plan.

My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.

I don't storyboard. I guess it dates back to my days in live television, where there was no possibility of storyboarding and everything was shot right on the spot - on the air, as we say - at the moment we were transmitting. I prefer to be open to what the actors do, how they interact to the given situation.

Scenes change all the time. Scenes will change while you're shooting them, and you just have to roll with it 'cause that's what makes it funny. It's not being stuck in your character and how you're gonna do something, but to react to other people and to really have a real-life conversation.

I don't come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.

I see my practice as picture making. Whatever is available, I use.