Kathryn Hahn Quotes

Having grown up around the theater, I've been moved by so many plays. Being a part of it, however small, is special.

'Nicholas Nickleby' was the best example, where 43 people could make an audience of 1,500 look at a fingernail at any given moment. It was so controlled, and yet it was a group of disparate individuals. It was a happy, constructive time, and it seemed to be an active discussion of what makes the theater work.

I think that acting is a very humanizing profession.

Starting my career in London was no accident because the city and the industry here are all about theatre and drama, and I respond well to that.

I love singing! I was a musical theater girl in high school. We were always singing and dancing around, and just doing little community theaters and high school musicals. Then, when I got to NYU, I focused more on drama.

Acting was merely a pastime; I wanted to make films. But theatre, ah - now that was a labour of love. Can there be anything better than performing without retakes and cuts, in front of people you can see, hearing them breathe in the darkness of the hall?

Theater has always been most important to my psyche.

Film is something that came later into my life. I had a Jesuit education, and I consider acting and the theater as kind of a calling - a vocation.

I had seen 'Pillowman' in London and loved it. Being part of something that I, as an audience member, would like to be part of was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

Directing was a natural thing for me. Actually, it was far less stressful directing than being the lead actor. I was able to have my input in all aspects of it.

I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

I was fascinated by all of it. The sounds of the theater and the audience, their rapture when a play took over and moved them and held them quietly... When the audience was truly moved, it was absolutely quiet. They were in a communion because they were learning the truth about themselves.

I'm a little Italian girl from New Haven who, as an actor, gets to jump classes through language.

I worked on the workshop of 'Topdog/Underdog' before it went to Broadway. My minor in school was theater, so I'm based in that, and then I moved to Los Angeles.

What I love about acting is experiencing the absolute moments of - you know - of getting lost in the world you've created for yourself.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

Theatre, for me, is about providing to the audience a new and exciting experience.

I love theater. You can't replicate the live format.

One of my favorite things to do, when the ghost light is on and it's just an empty stage - I'll let my shadow spread right across the theater, and I just say to myself, 'For the next few hours, these folks are my responsibility. I get to share in something that is unique.' It's like church.

I wasn't a musical-theater kid. We went to plays at school and took field trips to see Shakespeare. And that really sparked that fire for me, and so that's still going, and I haven't given up on it.

I love the idea of live theater the best because you are sitting there with the community in the dark, looking at the light, and that's really - you can't get any higher than that.

When I was in high school, I was so in love - as I should have been - with the performance aspect of theater and just the literal act of performing.

I am not indulgent. I think constructing a scene elaborately - with art, costume, and visual drama - is not indulgence. Other people should do it, too.