Bob Newhart Quotes

I need to do more on stage. I've got to get my fix!

Onstage, there's no hiding; you either can or can't act. There's no second take.

Personally, I need to learn every word on the page before I go in and audition. I have not mastered the skill of holding pages in my hand and acting with pages in my hand. I find that every time I have to look at the page it takes me completely out of the scene.

I've always loved acting, even from when I was a child. But when I got on stage, I realised I couldn't act my way out of a paper bag. I was wild and full of unharnessed energy, but I was around all these seasoned performers like Rita Cullis. It was as if they were all in slow motion.

Doing the long lines - it looks easy when actresses do it: they just say it straight up, looks like they do nothing wrong, they just keep going, but it's not like that.

I've always been fairly confident in my acting.

I always thought I was a pretty terrible actor.

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

If you're not doing something right, you can feel it on stage, and if it isn't going well, the audience will tell you. A teacher can teach you sense memory and this and that, but until you get in front of an audience, you don't really feel it.

I'm not a very good actor.

Am I a good actor? I don't think about it. But I'm working on it.

To be honest, I am scared of acting, and moreover, I want to be perfect on the musical stage first.

I am a terrible actor.

I have had a lot of training as an actor, but it's very different than being on set.

A live audience with live reactions feeds a different sort of acting that will then inform your film work, and vice versa.

I get very competitive, mostly in acting though. When I'm going out for a role or something, that's when I really get very territorial about things.

With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing.

The hardest part of acting is not when I'm acting, It's when I'm not.

The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

I like doing small parts, because I don't feel I'm that practised in acting. It's like making baby steps towards a bigger goal.

I become a better actor after I step on a stage in front of, like, 500 people when it's just me, a microphone and my guitar. You don't get as nervous walking into a room in front of 3 or 4 people and to do a scene or to walk on a set. You gain confidence.

Every audition is different, but I get incredibly nervous and insecure and worked up for however long I have to prep - that's when I get to spin. But you're not allowed to spin once you enter the room. Doubt really can't enter the room when you're auditioning - unless it's part of the character.

I did Shakespeare in college, and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.' I want to get the dialogue just spot-on.