Margo Jefferson Quotes

It was always theater for me. But part of that came out of the fact that I was always acting out as a kid. I was the kid who didn't play well with others.

Over and over again, I'm trying to express or communicate these big and small struggles to the world, and really to myself.

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don't really like. I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

The movements which I make I cannot possibly repress because, at the time, I am actually the idea I am interpreting, and naturally I picture my players and auditors as in accord with me. I know, of course, that my mannerisms have been widely discussed.

I try to act with my whole body and, for better or worse, this is the face that's attached to it.

Acting is what I do with who I am.

You have to learn to express differently. Whenever I do TV or film, I ask if I can see the shot to see, to see if it's full body or a close-up. That helps me understand how to communicate.

Who am I, if I'm not this singer with big high notes? I identify with my voice. But I'm more than just the acrobatics.

The roles I'm interested in or have been interested in, you know, it's going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict - conflict of interests.

The actor creates with his own flesh and blood all those things which all the arts try in some way to describe.

I love the simple poetry of theater, where you can stand in a spotlight on a stage and wrap a coat around you, and say, 'It was 1860 and it was winter...'

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

For me, the world is a stage, and we are all playing the character we have chosen to play on that stage. It is the job of the photographer to capture the drama of the performance.

I think there's always pieces of yourself that bleed into your character. That's inevitable.

When I was dancing, whether it was the music or the story, the question was 'Why am I doing this piece, and why am I dancing?' It is exactly the same when you are acting. You have a very close relationship with your body movement. You have to find the physicality of your character.

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know.

I can't take the theater side out of myself.

I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

I was like the class clown in school so I guess I would say I did like the attention. In church I did a lot of plays, my mother made me play characters, do a lot of drama and acting, trying to become someone else. So it helped me create who I am, to create Snoop Dogg.

Every time you play a bad girl or guy in a movie, you really come from a place of pain.

The most difficult thing to do is drama.

I believe your thoughts are your thoughts, but are you a human being in front of the camera, or an actor? They are two different things.

Acting is a mysterious process.