Columbus Short Quotes

I think dancing is contributed hugely to how I am as an actor, just a level of comfort in my body and in movement. Things can become strangely physically technical when you're acting, and often something that just feels so unnatural is actually what you need to do in a certain scene.

I would suggest it to any actor to get some movement classes because it really, really makes a difference.

I will do plays as long as they're interested in having me do them. It's the biggest opportunity to learn the most about how to act. Something I discover every time I'm doing one is how little I know about acting - how important the art of listening is, and how important it is to listen with your entire body. You can tell so much of a story with stillness, and a lot of that can be from really actively listening to your scene partner.

With acting, there are a lot of subtleties and non-verbals involved. If someone is over there, getting eaten by a shark, there's a non-verbal way of how to act that. There's a certain nuance to acting that does not come intuitively to me. It's something I still have to learn.

I simply know what the actor's attitude should be and what he should say. He doesn't, because he can't see the relationship that begins to exist between his body and the other things in the scene.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

I think my advice to other actors would be to get in classes. Get out in front of people. Put up scenes in front of your peers.

I think there's something to be said for being physical in acting.

Voice acting is very different from live-action. You only have one tool to convey emotion. You can't sell a line with a look. It's all about your vocal instrument.

You have an awareness of your body and how to use it and I think that if you can embody a character physically it's another really useful tool.

Actors always start with the voice and language. That's wrong. They should start with the body. The body is an actor's most important resource.

I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.

My No. 1 piece of advice, especially for someone who's an actor-singer-dancer - a triple threat, they're called! - people say, 'What's the most important?' I always say acting. Without knowing why you're singing or what you're singing about, it's just noise. And without knowing why you're moving your body, it's just flailing of arms.

Maybe it's a personality thing individual to me, but actors always benefit from body awareness.

I realised how important it is to have your body movement, your diction, tonality, dialogue delivery and to be in rhythm because everything is musical.

To be a good actor, you need to be able to emote with your body.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

Well, I can't (sing or dance). Actually, I sing like a seal and dance like your Uncle Leo at that wedding where he got up and went 'ya, ya, ya'.

I think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

I could depend a lot on my shaking, though I never shimmied vulgarly and only to express myself.

I was told that I was good in my dance movement classes and that I should concentrate on dance because it would enhance my ability to get acting work.

As soon as the actor steps into the role, you probably can cut 50% of the lines because there's a person there now. And what a person does with their eyes, with their mouth, with their hands, the way they walk into a room, you can probably cut half the scene.

Learn your lines… plant your feet… look the other actor in the eye… say the words… mean them.

The more you're able to understand how to do a good dramatic performance, that can inform your comedy. It all informs one another. And it keeps everything interesting.