Scott Ellis Quotes

And as I've gotten deeper into the process of making films and television and such, I think I have more trust in the fact that you really never know what you're going to find after the twenty-fifth take.

In theater, there's a lot of work to do to build the characters. It's a great experience.

The wonderful thing about theater as an art form is it's a purely empirical art form. It's all about what works. And every show, every production, is created anew right from the moment you go into the rehearsal hall.

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

That's the difference between working on film and working in a play. In a play, you work on it, and you live in it and develop it and make it happen.

I usually don't find myself reacting to my characters. I just create them ... And let the audience decide whether they're empathetic or scared or compelled to cheer me on.

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

Yes, we're trying some new stuff. Some of it might work. Some of it might not. This, of course, is the nature of episodic television. They can't all be gems.

The strangest thing about writing a sitcom, is never knowing if it will become anything but words on a page.

I'll tell you what I love about directing: the surprise. You never know what's going to happen with your piece until an audience weighs in.

In a play, the director is God, and I'm a great arguer. Rather boringly so, I think, about trying different things.

When I see an image in my head that compels me, where there's this mystery about what's going to happen next or could happen next, I'll be intrigued. There are so many scripts that you read, and you know exactly what's going to happen, and there aren't too many where you can't tell within the first 20 pages where it's going.

In order to represent life on the stage, we must rub elbows with life, live ourselves.

My background is in acting, so I enjoy being able to show what I'm looking for. With acting, it's very immediate when you show someone what you're looking for, and the feedback is instantaneous as well.

Actors take risks all the time. We put ourselves on the line. It is creative to be able to interpret someone's words and breathe life into them.

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

The beautiful thing about theater is every night is an opportunity to incorporate what you discovered the night before.

Actually, I've done it the other way so many times where you rehearse the band and you do the whole thing with lights, the show and the crew - everything. Then you see what happens and you're already committed to dates. I'm just sort of putting out feelers this way.

Quite often, I have a compelling sense of how a role should be played. And I'm proved - equally as often - quite wrong.

Our job as actors is to just try to be as accurate and as mindful of what the audience is going through and receiving and processing.

I always start a play by calling the characters A, B, and C.

I would say runway is easier because your job is to look good or play a character that is just going somewhere. It's rather physical, whereas acting is terrifying because you're dealing with your subconscious, and those can be murky waters. But I definitely can say that I enjoy acting more as an artist.

Every show finds its groove, I would say. The first season is the season to figure out the dynamics, the workflow.

If you're good enough to play a role with emotion and universal human elements, then you'll get others coming to you.