Arthur Smith Quotes

My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible.

During my school days, I was doing a play, and my costume fell on the stage. I really wish it didn't happen.

My junior year, I was in a play at school and five days before opening night, I still didn't know my lines. Opening night was a disaster. I was so embarrassed. The director made me work backstage for the rest of the performance.

In the summer after sixth grade, I took a class at St. Robert Bellarmine. My first role, I was the villain in a play, and I forgot all my lines. I think I cried my way through the performance.

I think all girls secretly want to be actresses because acting seems so glamorous. But as a child, I was always the villager who had one line in the school play. I was shy and I had a bit of a lisp.

As far as base humiliation goes, acting is a tough business. It's a tough, embarrassing thing to do for a living when you're starting out, and you better not have any ego or pride, because that will be wiped away clean by utter devastation.

My first live performance was the lead in 'Peter Pan.'

I remember coming in second in a singing competition when I was about 5. I was terrified and didn't win because I apparently looked miserable.

I listened to a clip someone had put up of me singing 'I Am What I Am' in the musical 'La Cage aux Folles.' I thought I was absolutely dreadful. It's like when you see photos of yourself at parties - at the time you thought you looked so cool and glamorous but you just look a bit drunk.

I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.

I actually acted onstage before I'd ever seen a live performance, and I loved it.

The day I came in and found another actor's name on my dressing room door, and my stuff out in the hall, that was the day I learned my lesson.

It was a dream to be a singer/performer, but I never thought I had a chance or had a real shot; I never thought I was good enough.

Acting is embarrassing.

That's why I've never made a live album - I can't bear listening to myself!

I don't really understand it: in real life, I'm often so shy - paralysingly so - but when I'm performing, it's totally different. I feel free.

In my senior year of high school, I was doing a dance with a bunch of friends for the talent show, and my pants split entirely in half. It was incredible.

So, suddenly I was an actor. I don't remember being nervous. I learned to be nervous later.

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

I'm scared of rehearsals, I'm scared of doing all this because I don't feel like I'm an actress.

I was the class clown, but I was a reluctant class clown because I was always and still am somewhat embarrassed by performing. I have terrible stage fright, and I don't like being in front of people.

Watching first nights, though I've seen quite a few by now, is never any better. It's a nerve-racking experience. It's not a question of whether the play goes well or badly. It's not the audience reaction, it's my reaction. I'm rather hostile toward audiences—I don't much care for large bodies of people collected together. Everyone knows that audiences vary enormously; it's a mistake to care too much about them. The thing one should be concerned with is whether the performance has expressed what one set out to express in writing the play. It sometimes does.

That's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.

Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.