Gretchen Mol Quotes

That connectivity with the audience that I get to enjoy, that's my church. It's not one of ego or anything like, 'I'm on the stage and the lights.' It's just this connectivity, and it's always been that way for me.

It's hard not to be affected by the live audience.

The music comes alive when you actually perform it in front of a crowd.

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.

My live performance, it just comes from feeling an energy and emotion from the crowd. Just going out there and doing my own stuff and being in front of my own people. I love it.

The reason I got into acting was the audience is right there and if you did something great they were right there and you knew it.

I love the theater because the theater is alive. The audience is right there.

When I finished performing 'I Won't Give Up' for the first time, I opened my eyes, and I think there was maybe six people in there when I started, and when I finished there was about 30 people, all standing around with their jaws dropped in complete silence. I said, 'Okay, I think this song has some power to it.' So coffee shops work for me.

The audience, the place you're in, has everything to do with how your performance goes.

I don't really like doing big stand-up. Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up. I've seen people in theaters, and it just doesn't work, because you're talking to the guy next to you the whole time.

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

The first time I acted was in high school in Florida, and when I heard that applause I felt so alive and felt that electricity go up my spine.

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.

I just feed off the energy of the audience.

Being in front of all these people staring at you and it helps you to dig down and become more emotional and get lost in it as you're feeding on people's energy.

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.

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.

When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave.

You leave part of yourself on every stage you're on. How could you not live in the air somehow?

I love working with an audience. I love working with actual people who, you know, if they're moved, you see it. If you say something they're stunned by, you see their jaws drop. If they're amused, they laugh - that kind of reinforcement, I totally adore.

The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.

When you're on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn't exactly a sound - it's a hum, like the streets.

There is nothing to compare with the instantaneous feedback a singer gets from the people sitting in front of him. That is where it all comes together - all the rehearsing and working to get everything just exactly right.

In theater, the wellspring of the character comes from the doing of it, like a trial by fire, but in front of an audience.

When you are performing in theater, you feel so connected to your audience. It's exhilarating!