Atom Egoyan Quotes

Half of acting is you're very intimidated, overcoming your fears, letting yourself be vulnerable in front of people and that sort of stuff.

Going out on a stage publicly and not knowing how people are going to react to you - once I experienced that, it made me feel much more comfortable about going into a scene.

When you first are in front of the camera as a young person, you'd be surprised at all the insecurities you can get.

I've auditioned for roles that involved voice, but I don't like it. I feel like, I can't do this in front of you. It seems so separate - I don't share it with a lot of people. And I'm not into public performances.

When you're on stage singing, you're naked. Your voice is something very intimate, and that's why I'm scared every time before I perform. It doesn't matter if I'm singing for a king or a queen or the Pope, it's enough to be in front of anybody. I suffer, but I can't do anything about it.

Sometimes the last thing you want to do is to go on stage and bare your soul in front of hundreds of complete strangers. Singing the same songs night after night can remind you of things you'd rather forget.

I did musicals. It's funny, because I can hide behind a character and a voice, but when I have to bring myself and my own voice to it, it's very nerve-wracking.

I can't really explain the feeling of acting. It makes you the most insecure you can possibly be.

I would say the biggest risk I always take is going in front of a live audience. There's nothing more risky to do. You have to really leave yourself open to your own authenticity, and you find that out pretty quick.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

Acting is an uncomfortable business because you have to make yourself vulnerable.

When I go in front of an audience, I'll admit I sometimes have a certain amount of fear in me, because maybe the people are not going to accept what I'm doing today. That's bad for any artist, especially if what you're doing is not in line with what's happening today.

You know sometimes I just want to curl up on stage and lie there for a while - it's weird.

It wasn't so much that I was all alone on stage, but it was the realization of how much you need the response-you need the audience to tell you where to go.

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That's the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

As a person who performs on stage, it's good to be emotionally open. If you mess with someone when they are in that state, it's like you're messing with an animal when it's eating.

It probably says something really clinically terrible about my character that I need to get up on a stage and go 'Ra ra ra' in front of people.

I think a lot of singers are shy people. I suppose singing on stage is not like talking; you are not as exposed.

Acting is therapeutic. I say I'm not shy, but... Acting is a very vulnerable experience, and you've got to be really confident to put yourself out there to be judged.

But I'm guessing every actor is insecure.

Sometimes I find myself in this super-raw place onstage where I'm like, 'Maybe that's not the best thing. Maybe I need to shut down a little.'

At school, people would say I should go on 'Britain's Got Talent,' but I would never have done that because it doesn't seem genuine; it doesn't feel natural.

Stage fright is my worst problem. A voice is very intimate. It's something of your own. So there's always this fear, because you feel naked. There's a fear of not reaching up to expectations.

In a way I feel completely frightened of dealing with other human beings at all, yet here I am sticking my face in front of a movie camera all the time.

In acting class, I used to hide in the corner and pray the teacher wouldn't call on me.