Isaiah Washington Quotes

When I get a beautifully written piece of material, I immediately start imagining how I would interpret it. I love just daydreaming about it for months, breaking it down, seeing where I can spin something. How I can turn this into the most fun ride for the audience that I can make it? That's my job.

I don't know what an audience wants to see but I know what I like to see.

What I love is to create a show and for people to enjoy it and be aware that's what it is: a show.

I want to entertain viewers as much as possible.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

I think when I start out writing, I always try to write the version of the movie that I want to go see. I don't mean it in a way that ignores the audience, but I really set out to make a movie that I want to see and that, hopefully, other people will want to go see it. So whatever's amusing to me, I guess, I throw it all in there.

Putting TV stars in plays just to get people in is wrong. You have to have the right people in the right parts. Stunt casting and being gimmicky does the theatre a great disservice. You have to lure people by getting them excited about a theatrical experience.

At this stage, what would be rewarding would be for audiences to want to watch.

When onstage, I always try to take my audience through as many emotions as I possibly can. I want them to go from laughter to tears, be shocked and surprised and walk out the door with a renewed sense of themselves - and maybe a smile.

Film making is an expensive, as well as a serious business. We should be able to entertain our audiences, who are fully aware of what they want. Every filmmaker has a different point of view and presents facets of society.

It's fantastic that 'Strictly' is beating 'The X Factor' for many reasons - but one of the main reasons is I think it's a fantastic piece of variety television. It is live, varied TV whereby we are really hanging ourselves out by the seam of our pants.

I'm doing the kind of show that I would want to see.

In my theater, I'm not trying to change the world.

Most theater tells you what to think.

It's a fine line. If you withhold too much, you come across as wooden - as I've often been described in some movies. Fair enough. I believe that the best performances are the ones that an audience has to search for.

We still have that same burn, to get that same kind of laughs. So whether the studio wants us to or not, we're going to do it. The money is just a byproduct of coming out with good stuff. Our whole thing is building that rapport with the audience.

When you come to my show, I want it to feel like opera, like a theatre.

The most important thing is to illicit some reaction, good or bad. If some people are repellent to me, so be it. If some people are attracted to me, great. At the end, that's the object of entertainment - you want to provoke a reaction.

Making a movie to entertain people, that's just as important as telling people about our stories.

Live performances always feel like such a moment with all of the costumes and theatrics.

TV is really about keeping things fresh and making sure you have the most energy possible for these very short spurts of time.

I always tell people this - when you start wrestling, don't forget that part you liked as a child. If you can keep a bit of that in your act, you can keep a bigger audience.

What I want to impart on any movie I work on is I want to make it entertaining. That's what I feel I do.

Entertaining those who come to see me is my objective.

I love working in front of American crowds.