Buster Keaton Quotes

Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own.

I learned mime back when I was in college, at Ball State University, Indiana. That woke up my body from the neck down and made me realize that acting and communication - portraying a story, event, or emotion - is a full-body experience.

Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.

Never get a mime talking. He won't stop.

It's interesting - a lot of good actors are good mimes. But I'm terrible. If I tried to do an impression, nobody would know what I was doing.

It takes more drawing to tell a story in pantomime.

I always loved to dance and move. I probably should have been a mime or something like that.

I went to school in the 1970s, and there was a lot of physical theater in those days.

I used to be a narrator for bad mimes.

I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.

If you have to tell a story without speaking, it's sort of like - I come from a dance background, so it's like a ballet where you have to tell a story with just your body. I think that's really interesting to have to tell a story with just your face and your mannerisms, and I'd like to tap into that world.

I never liked miming.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.

It's hard to act with just your jaw.

I certainly enjoy doing pantomime-y things, but I didn't have any specific training in it.

Physical expression was my first language: Before I was an actor, I was a dancer, an acrobat, a mime and a street performer.

I studied and performed and even taught mime years ago.

In a costume, you need very exaggerated body language - as you say, sort of mime-type skills.

Mime is an art beyond words. It is the art of the essential. And you cannot lie. You have to show the truth.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

In theater, what I loved were wordless plays and working in silence.

For many years, I did pantomime with Marcel Marceau. I was a writer for him and got to know very well how to use the body for illustration. I wanted to do a mother without arms, but using the arms of her son in Santa Sangre. The tragedy should always have something funny. Something weird.

There is really nothing like seeing a live stage performance.

It is a treat to do scenes where you silently enact.

What I loved about wrestling was just being foolish, so I studied clown. I studied clown. I studied the art of clown. I actually did my thesis on clown.