Peter MacNicol Quotes

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.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence.

One of the hardest things to do in acting is to stop thinking about yourself and stop being self-conscious.

It's hard being a Broadway actor going into film where you have to tone everything down. In theater, everything you're taught is to be big and broad and make everyone feel like they are right next to you, even in the last row of seats.

I could have done a night at the O2 in London, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm not being big-headed, but for my act I can't be talking to an audience of 12,000 people. There's no intimacy.

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.

What I love about the theater is that you know who you're acting for: your audience. And the thing I find really hard in film is, you don't. The audience is invisible. And we're sitting there, hoping there's other people out there.

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.

I specifically remember doing the musical 'Sweet Charity' at Stagedoor. I was playing Vittorio Vidal, which is a very funny part, and some other small roles. I couldn't really sing that well, but there were so many fun bits, and I just remember the tremendous adrenaline rush I felt from being onstage and hearing the audience enjoying it.

One of the skills you have to master in theater is the ability to make the audience believe that things that aren't there are there - just like when you're acting against CGI. Also, in a theater, the people in the back row can't see the whites of your eyes. Or your lips moving as you deliver dialogue.

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

I can never wink at the audience.

Why do you act? You act for an audience. In the theatre, you're in their presence. Film stars don't know what it is to have an audience.

I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, 'Oh, we should film this,' as opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.

I played Romeo when I was younger, and I think I did a couple kind Romeo-like parts after that, and I kind of went, 'I mustn't do this again. I must always choose something that I don't know if I'm a good enough actor to play.'

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.

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

When you are on stage, you don't see faces. The lights are in your eyes and you see just this black void out in front of you. And yet you know there is life out there, and you have to get your message across.

I'm nervous the first few songs, and then I'm like, 'I got this audience. I'm ready!'

I sometimes think the theatre is more demanding because it requires things you don't have in films, like it requires you to make the people in the front row believe you and not look an idiot to them while the people right at the back can hear you.

Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance.

If you go on stage with the wrong attitude, or something in your performance is off, you can lose an audience in the first minute. That first minute is crucial.

When you're performing, you're playing to the back row. With acting, you have to be more nuanced.

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

I just play to the people I can see. So it's almost like you are playing to the first few rows of the crowd. You can see the faces of the first hundred people, but then it becomes a blur as the crowds disappear over the hill.