Derren Brown Quotes

I was going to say that writing is about disclosure and acting is about obfuscation, but that's such a little lie. Both of them are about obfuscation and masking oneself.

I was quite a shy person growing up, and drag was very much a shield for me to perform behind.

We are all doing drag. Every single person on this planet is doing it.

Objectivity is almost a choice you make. As a burlesque performer, I didn't choose to be objectified.

To me, getting to do music and videos, you work on a character. Being onstage is acting; you get to be larger than life and larger than yourself.

But when I go off stage I don't have a deck of cards with me all the time.

Modeling gave me an opportunity to be someone I'm not each day.

Actors and magicians are both performers, and they represent things that are not necessarily who they are.

I don't think you can say something is or isn't magic. That's what was cool about Houdini, because he was a magician who had a magic show, but he was also an escape artist, and they kind of, over time, blended together. They both kind of enhance each other, I think.

As actors, we get to hide. You can change your hair and your accent, and it's not you. You have tricks, these masks.

When we go to play, you flip around and flash around and everything, and then they're not gonna see nothin' but what their eyes see. Forget about their ears.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

I'm always in disguise in one form or another in my plays.

What once was an expression of who I was - acting - also became my hiding place.

One of the great things about wrestling is how it interrogates this silly idea that you have one authentic self.

I consider myself a showman, and I love magic, and I love art, and I love performance, and they're all separate.

When you get on stage, you can be anything. You are removed from reality in a way, the real world.

I find it really cool when people have this artist persona they can put on. They can go out and act like this other person; I can't pull that off... I can't censor myself.

Penn & Teller stopped doing practical jokes, and the reason is we got much too good at it.

Acting is acting.

An actor is someone who pretends to be somebody else. A movie star is somebody who pretends that somebody else is them.

I think the reason I'm an actor is the joy I find from escaping and going to be somebody else. That's what I have fun doing.

I knew there was something special about the theater for me something beyond the regular reality, something that I could get into and transcend and become something other than myself.

As a singer I tried on all these hats, these voices, these clothes, and eventually out came me.

Part of show business is magic. You don't know how it happens.