Jeff Fahey Quotes

The old actors in the old days, they used to go on tour, to get the play ready for the West End, and to learn their lines. The old timers used to say, "Be very careful, dear boy, what you get in to during the first weeks of a long tour."

But it was not possible to do this movie, in this matter of time, without a solid rehearsal period.

The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.

I acted for so many years and sat on a million sets and worked with a million different directors so that is to me some of the best training you can get.

I went into this job to do plays, but that's here for 10 weeks, and the rest of the year I do a lot of other things-the administrative work of planning, reading plays.

When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV.

The great thing about the stage is that you have a structured month-long rehearsal period where you're going in every day. You have to have lots of run-throughs with theater because there are no second takes in front of a live audience.

We would change out of costume, then we would read the next days script.

My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.

Plays are not written but rewritten, and much of the rewriting takes place at the behest of the director, whose job it is to grapple with the myriad complexities of moving a play from the page to the stage.

Most of my career up until the last couple of years has basically been a training ground for me. Actors that came up in the '50s and '60s, they had the theater, and television was in its infancy.

I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience.

The rehearsal time is almost my favourite part of being an actress, particularly if you're working on a play that hasn't been done before.

It's exciting to do something like this because usually what happens in theater is that, after the first or second reading of a play, it falls apart completely and the rehearsal process is such that you begin to pick up the pieces and put it back together again.

For me, there's nothing more valuable as an actor, or better way to learn, than getting to perform in front of a live audience, no matter where you are. Whether it's on Broadway, in Florida, or doing a tour.

I've always been scared to do a play. I don't know why, because doing 'Happy Days' was like a play with three cameras.

I don't watch anything of mine much. I haven't gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I'd be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

I understudied Colm Feore quite a bit in '85 and '86 - 'Persephone' and 'The Boys from Syracuse,' too - and that was great, great training for me. He was and he is an amazing theatre actor.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

Theatre gives you an altogether different kind of thrill which every actor who wants to grow must try.

I always get less nervous when we get into rehearsals because it just gives me a better idea of how it's gonna go.

No, I haven't taken training as such but I used to attend all those 7 day workshops before the play. Those workshops aren't so professional but it's enough to give you a good idea what acting is all about.

Colin [Farrell] I talked to several times on the phone, and I said, remember, we have only twenty-five days of doing the movie [Miss Julie], so you must know some of your text. I was a little un-feminist, I didn't want to say [bossy voice] "learn your text!" But when he came, he knew all his text.

If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes.