Swoosie Kurtz Quotes

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

The process of rehearsal means you learn so much and really get the chance to develop your work on a character.

I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'

Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.

The rehearsal process is the biggest gift you can give to the director and to yourself as an actor because it allows you to shape the character and the scenes.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

What we do as actors is we go through phases where you superficially learn all this information.

I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.

I think that when you first read material or you first read a script or story and know you might be playing a part, it's important not to see yourself because it should be a challenge enough that it doesn't come easy.

As an actor you make choices that are either right or wrong, and you find the ones that are right for you. As an understudy, the choices have been made, so you have to make those choices right. Going into the role, you can't really question it.

I'm one of those lazy actors; I like to take what the playwright wrote and work with that.

I only work with actors who take full responsibility for their characters.

The rehearsal time is almost my favourite part of being an actress, particularly if you're working on a play that hasn't been done before.

I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know.

It's exciting to do something like this because usually what happens in theater is that, after the first or second reading of a play, it falls apart completely and the rehearsal process is such that you begin to pick up the pieces and put it back together again.

The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can't just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.

I'm just thinking I'm just like a normal actor who gets scripts, and I read them, and... if I enjoy reading them, then that's what's exciting, then I get excited about the audition or the project itself.

I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character.