Michael O'Keefe Quotes

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

The whole thing about acting, the draw for me, is the opportunity to do things you don't get to do in real life.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

The thing about acting is you don't want to let on how enjoyable it is or then everybody would want to become an actress. But it really is. It's a pleasure to go and exchange your identity.

Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

There's a tremendous amount to be gained from being a performer, and being an artist, and being an actor.

Looking at acting, in the movies or the theater, and the way I like to look at it, it's just an extension of childhood play... Kids play and imagine in a very intense fashion and they don't need any director telling them, 'You really have to believe in it.' They believe in it completely.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

I love telling stories. I like the challenges presented to me on a daily basis. There's nothing resting about acting.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

Acting is still, of course, what I love to do most. The beauty of it is that by changing characters, it never gets boring.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

I've never so appreciated what actors do and how strange it is.

I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I'm always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

Literature is an easier way to study acting, because then you can take any kind of spin.

I'm an actor and my job is to interpret.

I love acting. It's an interesting challenge to make something that doesn't exist appear like it's happening, and to do it in a real way.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

I'm an actor in that I just want to create roles and characters and play parts that people remember and like or dislike or hate.

I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.