George Balanchine Quotes

I am a showman in the traditional sense, but modern, too. I like to use sets and lighting to create magic.

Once I go on stage, the atmosphere is totally theatrical. The greater the illusion, the greater the intensity of the excitement it creates.

To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.

A magician pulls a rabbit from a hat, and actors pull truth from fiction.

I always knew that if I was ever going to perform something that I wrote in front of an audience, I was going to do the thing I most like to experience as an audience member, which is to be tricked.

For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well.

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

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

I've always seen myself as one of those 'show people.' My earliest memories are wanting and needing to entertain people, like a gypsy traveler who goes from place to place, city to city, performing for audiences and reaching people.

Film and theater are about misdirection and making the audience see something. I find it interesting. One of the things we do in 'True Blood' is shoot all of our stunts in camera. Instead of doing some kind of visual effect, we try to make it happen.

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

I enjoy all kinds of performances and take each role differently. I keep the audiences in mind.

I became a dancer in self-defense. I was doing a comedy monologue and didn't know how else to get off, so I danced off. I've been dancing ever since, but I'm still a comedian.

Growing up as a dancer, the stage is really where I love to be performance wise.

In my opinion, there's nothing new in the theatre, ever. Theatre-makers are thieves, in the honourable tradition of charlatans. They fake it very, very well indeed for the entertainment of everybody else.

At the end of the day if you want to entertain people, you've got to take your ego out of the equation.

What I want to give in the theatre is beauty, that's what I want to give.

I've seen people who stink, but the film editor shows them just where they didn't stink. But if you're empty and manipulative on stage, it's clear.

At the end of the day, acting is all about telling lies. We are professional imposters and the audience accept that. We've made this deal that we tell you a tale and a pack of lies, but there will be a truth in it. You may enjoy it, or it will disturb you.

I don't know what else I would do. I love entertaining people, I love communicating, I love an audience. I'm a real artist, right from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head.

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

I totally remove myself from any costumes, wardrobe, any choreography. I could care less about that stuff.

There's a way in which 'The Illusion' is a play about the theater.

The real secret of magic lies in the performance.

There are certain ways of being that people don't find acceptable or very pleasant in regular life, but you go out on stage and do pretty much the same thing and they find it spellbinding.