Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

When it's a live performance, anything can happen.

Live TV is unlike any other animal. I love the adrenaline rush. I love the unexpected.

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

I started in live television and I've done a lot of live TV and that's really the thing that I love best. I love flying by the seat of my pants.

Improv is a disposable art form, but it's kind of freeing in that way, too, because things can fail, and the audience is a little more forgiving.

When you go live, anything can happen. It excites me because it means I have to be on. When the camera's on, whatever happens happens.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.

A certain rough-around-the-edges improvisational looseness - a sense of something coming together before your eyes, or not quite - may be one of the things that distinguishes performance art from theater.

It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen.

There are no rules in live television.

It's thrilling to be onstage and to not know, literally, what the next moment is going to bring. To just submit to the not-knowing-ness of it.

Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it's dangerous.

I love the you-never-know-what's-going-to-happen aspect of doing concerts.

It's so liberating to play a song in front of 50,000 people that you've never played before. Not something you played a long time ago and have forgotten: Never. Played. Before. There's something magical about it.

I'm energized by this idea that's live television. In the same way as an athlete when they get on the field or on the court, you have to perform in that moment or it's past you and you've missed.

I think from doing so many live shows it gives you a real appreciation of being present. You don't know what's going to happen, you don't know what is around the corner.

Sometimes improv doesn't work on TV because the audience had heard the thing that was shouted and they're very much alive, the audience in the room - they're alive in that moment. Whereas the audience sat at home on the sofa, it feels like it's part of a party that they haven't been invited to.

If I see a live show and it doesn't have the aspect of danger where it could potentially go wrong, it's not that interesting to me.

At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew. It's like making love. The act is always the same, but each time it's different.

It's hard to keep a play alive moment-to-moment, you know? But there's another part of it that I really love, which is that you never know.

You often feel like you are on a high wire with no net productions because you have to rely on spontaneity and come up with ideas on the spur of the moment - and then what happens is that there is electricity to it that gets caught.

The greatest thing about the call-in show is that you always felt like you were on a high wire without a net.

It's always a surprise! This business is always an adventure.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

From the moment you say 'action,' this is the fun part - things should happen that surprise you, excite you, scare you, turn you on, make you laugh. If things aren't surprising you, when you say 'cut,' whisper things to the actors that will make them do things that do surprise you.