Bruce Davison Quotes

As actors, you do have to be aware of your audience. You can't act in a vacuum, even if that audience isn't exactly present with you.

Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.

I'm able to look the person acting across from me and respond to that. There are times when it becomes so lonely and painful, but I think I'm able to overcome them because I realize that the more fiercely you prepare for a role, the more the audience can feel it.

I am so used to being up on stage and talking to my fans that it's strange to be on stage and be someone else. I can't look at the audience during 'In the Heights' or I will start talking to them.

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.

The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct? We are delivering the playwright's intention through the concept of the director. And I come on stage; if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away.

If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before.

One of the exciting and enjoyable aspects of acting is being in the environment with another actor.

Actors have to make you believe that it's happening for the first time and all that jazz and make it human and at the same time entertain you.

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

In theater, the wellspring of the character comes from the doing of it, like a trial by fire, but in front of an audience.

As an actress I just want to tell beautiful stories.

I walk into a scene, and I do the scene. That's my job. I don't have an objective. I have the words, and I have whoever I'm playing with.

As an actor, what you dream of is being able to portray people that people empathize with and understand and really feel for.

At the end of the day, an actor has to just play what's in front of him.

As an actor, you don't really have a say or a voice in what the conversation of the show is going to be. So, as an actor, I'm just trying to make sense of why the character is making these choices, and somehow, in that way, you can sympathize or root, at least not detest, what this person is doing. That's, at least, my job in telling that story.

There's a great tradition of actors taking on parts of much less obvious sympathy.

In theater acting, you leave that night and what it was is what it was.

Ultimately, as an actor, it comes down to committing to the text in the script.

Improv acting is not just saying the lines but connecting with the other actor.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

When you have a chance to play a character people can relate to, it's rewarding.