The Ultimate Warrior Quotes

I just love to be able to actually build a character.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people.

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.

Once you learn how to work inside the ring - once you learn how to tell a story - then you can come to a big company like the WWE and learn the extra stuff, like the video, the pyro, the music, and that adds to everything you can do.

In comic books, every character exists in this comic book world, and the wrestlers were the same thing. They were responsible for creating that world and putting it out there - having the confidence to go forward and do that and behave in a certain way.

I study entertainment and apply it to myself to one day become the greatest WWE superstar we have, and it's a lot of work. So I write jokes and material every day... you have to keep people's attention, one way or another.

I really wanted to create some of my own characters, then it became wanting to act the parts, then it sort of grew from there because I really enjoyed doing it.

I'm not standing above the audience trying to manipulate them as a puppet master or a trickster; I'm inside the story I'm writing and making and thinking about things very seriously and feeling very deeply at times, and trying to translate that into a narrative.

The key is to be a personality outside of the ring and then bring that personality with you inside the ring.

The great thing about being an actor is things happen to you very quickly. I like to put myself in the way of surprise.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

The audience has to understand that if the film is going to have any meaning for them. If they are going to empathize with the characters, they have to visualize the process of concentration involved in making every move.

Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people see, but the enjoyment I get out of acting is playing characters.

Voice acting is very creative, especially 'Star Wars' voice acting, because there's so much you have to imagine.

It's like fiction - the fact that somebody's telling you a story about people who didn't exist doesn't make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind. You go through heavy emotional responses to these stories, and wrestling is a similar thing - but it's happening in real space.

I mean, I don't know anything else that I would try to do, but it's a very frustrating thing to do, because you are trying to take what's a fantasy in your head and make it live through the minds of 200 people.

I love writing plays because they are living, fluid things that are energised by the producer, designers, musicians, actors and audience.

Acting is contained - you act for three months, then leave it - but writing is the act of creation. Writing is dangerous.

Usually when you're doing concepts for a character, you just try a couple different things to see what sticks.

I believe that acting in any medium is the same thing, it's discovering the truth in where you are.

I don't tend to cast roles in my head because I spend so much time with these characters and the drawings that they're complete in themselves, you know what I mean?

The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors.