Michael Palin Quotes

I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.

As an actor, I'm always up for exploring and trying new things.

I don't like going for more than a year without doing theatre. I don't mind falling flat on my face so long as I feel I'm open to the possibility of something extraordinary happening.

Theater is a way to keep challenging myself.

It was a fantastic learning experience and OK, I got slammed because I wasn't Audrey Hepburn but you could have predicted that, really, if you'd opened your eyes wide enough.

The great thing about acting is that, until you're dead, you can do it. There are aspects to it that as time goes on you hope you get better at, and there are a lot of things that I'm excited to explore.

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

I feel like I could carry a movie or a show, and I'll mess up here and there, and I'll learn from those things.

I now realise I'm a great actor.

Janet Carroll and Robert Pine, Chris Pine's dad, were in my first play, and they were so astonishingly good, I felt it raised my game instantly.

I would do theatre till I die. Theatre keeps your honesty alive. You can't pollute yourself. You learn a lot, and you use theatre techniques in life.

In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way.

As an actress I really like exploring and doing new experiences.

It's very nice to be in a show where your vanity is completely out of the picture.

Meisner technique was different than anything I'd ever experienced. It's a really great way to be accountable to your craft and to yourself, but also it takes that kind of focus and dedication to learn anything.

It's a real leveller, you know, to do theatre at least once every two years.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

I love playing different characters and things that are challenging. I'm not interested in safety at all. That's what makes me get up in the morning.

The art of acting is to pitch good. You do the pitching and hope that the other person catches the ball and does some good pitching back to you.

I've never gotten hired for drama because I'm a good improviser. I don't think people who write drama scripts want you playing with them as much.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

Acting is playing - it's actually going out on a playground with the other kids and being in the game, and I need that. Writing satisfies that part of myself that longs to sit in my room and dream.

It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.

I want to do primarily film and theater; I always want to do a play because it feeds my soul. It's like an exercise on stage.

You learn an incredible amount doing theatre, not just about to behave.