Stephen Sondheim Quotes

Acting and singing are actually very similar because they're both telling a story.

You don't have to underestimate your audience anymore. They'd actually like to laugh a little bit. So, the character came to me and once it's got its grips in you, there's nowhere to go.

You're trying to bring a character to an audience, and tell stories. That's what we're all trying do.

Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.

I'm all about the story. If I like the character and I think the story's entertaining, I'll do it.

The place I begin is with story. If the audience doesn't care about that, then it doesn't matter how amazing the spectacle is. My central philosophy is that people go to the movies to be told a story, not to see stuff blow up.

If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.

As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.

A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

You can have great sequences with music, but if you don't have the acting you're bored after 15 minutes. Or not bored, but you're like, 'So what?'

Audiences still crave storytelling.

My first love is definitely performing, but I just love storytelling, and that's another aspect of it.

I was drawn to performing and to storytelling.

I love wrestling, and I love telling a story to the audience.

I never made a clear-cut in my mind between theatre and film, as I always felt that at the heart of both of them is storytelling and acting.

Without a good story, a franchise won't work.

I tell stories and try to do it honestly so that people are interested and enjoy them.

People don't come to the theatres to watch a kiss. It's the story that appeals to them.

You want, whenever you're telling a story, to have a certain amount of range, and you want to be able to take the audience on that ride with you.

I enjoy both TV writing and novel writing, and they are very similar. The goal is to entertain and amuse the audience, and I subscribe to this P.G. Wodehouse piece of advice: "Try to give pleasure with every sentence."

An idea has no worth at all without believable characters to implement it; a plot without characters is like a tennis court without players. Daffy Duck is to a Buck Rogers story what John McEnroe was to tennis. Personality. That is the key, the drum, the fife. Forget the plot.

But if you don't understand that story is character and not just idea, you will not be able to breathe life into even the most intriguing flash of inspiration.

And if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that cool props and special effects are not enough. Story comes first. Everything depends on story.

Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different... Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.

With the theatre, for God's sake, everything makes sense. You create a clear sequential reality for a specific audience at one particular time.