Israel Horovitz Quotes

Sometimes you can fall into bad habits on film or rest on your laurels, and you can't do that in theater. I think it's such a useful tool as a person and as an actor to go back and forth between those two mediums.

I find performing very difficult. It's difficult to be a good actor. I get very nervous, even though it sounds disingenuous, because you could legitimately go, 'Well, why do it?'

When you've got good actors, they're going to come up with good stuff, but you're never quite sure how the dynamics are going to work between them.

I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.

If actors could actually make a living doing theater, that would be my first choice. Sitcoms are the closest thing to being onstage in front of an audience.

Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the director's eyes, you 'get it right' does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.

The whole point about becoming an actor is variety and changing roles.

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

I like having the script before I start. With new plays, you're constantly developing as you're doing it. It's really frightening. You don't quite know how it's going to end up.

I was lucky enough to get into drama school in London back in 2005, and I was there for three years, and in those three years, we did a lot of theater. A lot of classical training.

You're not going to learn about acting on TV and in film. You'll learn more in plays and in class.

We know, in history, people are unable to put different elements together and create gold, yet it's what you're asking actors to do every day. You're asking them to relax enough with the confines and restrictions of the lights and the cameras, and you gotta hit this mark, to relax enough to create what seems wonderful and beautiful.

I was more used to acting onstage, for a long time. I don't know, maybe I was temperamentally more suited to stage stuff. And there are things about the stage that I miss in a lot of ways.

From the time I was five years old, theater was all I knew. I did community theater; I went to theater school. It's like going to the gym as an actor: every single night, you have to recreate the illusion of the first time, so you really have to listen and connect and stay in the moment for an hour and a half - with no breaks.

I would make a huge distinction between theater improvisation and film improvisation.

Compared to film or television, theater is more interactive, collaborative.

I was told that, when 'Betrayal' was being produced by one of the provincial companies in England, the two actors playing those roles actually went into a pub one day and played that scene as if it were really happening to them. The people around them became very uncomfortable.

I spent a lot of time in Chicago at a place called The Annoyance Theater, where we would develop one-act plays through improv, and you would just improvise scenes and then discover something about the character and use it in the next scene.

I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.

I'm someone who started in the theater and really couldn't stand repeating the show. My favorite part of acting is the five or six weeks of rehearsal that you get. I like doing previews; I like the opening week because my friends and family come, and then after that, I don't want to do it anymore.

I have written before, but I was primarily an actor and improvisational performer.

The great thing about doing a play is you get this rehearsal period, which you don't get with most film and television roles.

Ryerson helped me because I was around acting all the time. It was pretty much all I thought about, even if I didn't really get to practice every day; I definitely thought about it. Actually a lot of it was just sitting and watching, especially in my last year, but I think a good actor learns from everything.

I want to expand what I do and definitely focus a little more in the acting, theater world.

My parents thought if they put me in drama classes, I might come out of my shell. It worked, and I've acted ever since.