Lindsay Mendez Quotes

In theatre, I loved doing '2nd May 1997' at the Bush. Jack Thorne is a brilliant writer, and it was really exciting and felt new and different for me.

I was an understudy in a show called 'One Over The Eight' with Kenneth Williams and Sheila Hancock.

I was in eighth grade when I did my first Junior Theatre show. I was in 'Annie Get Your Gun' as a dancing Indian.

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having.

I was horribly shy all through grade school and high school. But somehow I got up the nerve to audition for one play in high school - 'Auntie Mame.' I got a small part as the fiancee who comes on in the end. I got laughs. I wasn't shy at all doing the part. I can do anything on stage and write it off as a character.

I'd love to go back and do theater. There's nothing like that instant response and the connection to a live audience.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.

When I saw Paul Scofield do 'Love's Labor's Lost at Stratford,' that's when I saw the potential of the level of truth that could go on up there on a stage. I said, 'This is what I want to do.'

The first drama thing I really got stuck into was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' I played Puck. That's when I said, 'I want to be an actor.'

To be honest I don't think I was any great shakes as a theatre actor because everything I was doing was really small in size - intimate.

I did little theater things growing up.

I've been able to perform in front of thousands of people on stage in a character that's nothing like me. I'm very shy.

There are so many huge roles in the theatre: if you've got the option to play Hedda Gabler on stage, why wouldn't you choose that over a three-line part in a Hollywood film as somebody's maid or somebody's wife or somebody's best friend?

I haven't done any 'Fringe' shows since I was about 17. Then I performed with my youth theatre in a show where we all had this old-fashioned make-up on and giggled through our lines.

I did my first show when I was five and I was the King of the Oompa Loompas in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' The kids' theater company, I was the youngest one, so there wasn't a part for me, so they made me the king of the Oompa Loompas.

Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.

I love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours.

I was always the lead role in plays. I like entertaining people. I like when you're on stage doing crazy stuff and the audience gets it.

When I was 12, I played the Artful Dodger in Cameron McKintosh's production of 'Oliver!' when it came to Toronto. Just getting the role shocked my whole family, and I don't think I realized until then just how much I loved getting up in front of people and performing.

I did a production of 'Journey's End,' an RC Sherriff play about World War I, at the Edinburgh Festival. I was 18 and it was the first time that people I knew and loved and respected came up to me after the show and said, 'You know, you could really do this if you wanted to.'

It was a wonderful experience to live the life for a year; to spend all day doing Shakespeare and then do a play in the evening.

I never thought I'd be one of those old hams who favours theatre over everything, but I'm getting that way. Telly and film seemed more fun when I was younger; turning left on planes and washing up in nice places. But there are things that you only learn in theatre.

I can't imagine anything more debilitating, anything more challenging, anything more thrilling than to get on a stage and do any kind of play. It is such a vulnerable place for any actor to be in.

But I think what made me go into theater was seeing my mother onstage. The first thing she did was Mrs. Frank in 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' The second thing she did was a play about Freud called 'The Far Country.' She played a paralyzed woman in Vienna who goes to see Freud.