Mara Brock Akil Quotes

Acting is fun, but directing is very stressful.

Baseball would be a quite remarkable activity if it was the one place in the world where your co-workers didn't have any impact on how productive you were. But in fact, baseball is a high-stress occupation, and those sort of stress-inducing activities... just have a huge impact on how the team functions, I think.

There's a joy and a pain about directing where the dreams you have are becoming concrete but the attention to detail, the need for time is such that it's overwhelming at times, and the stream of responsibility.

There is such a hype and a big build up to me, and it's very hard to meet those expectations. That's been a big stress in my life.

I don't care how good you are, teams can be put under pressure.

When I begin shooting, I get nervous, as I am under pressure to do my job well.

I don't feel like I ever really do get past the nervousness. I'm always nervous. Something about being nervous keeps you on the edge, and I've always felt like I worked better under pressure.

I don't think I know enough about acting to direct. You need to be a slight megalomaniac, not where you want to take over the world, but where you want to make every single decision and the buck stops with you. It's an awful lot of stress.

I find directing more satisfying.

I'm always thinking 'Don't mess this up.'

No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.

I have so much respect for directors. It's a tremendous amount of pressure; you have to keep steadfast and keep what you know is right.

We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you're anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.

As an actor, it's hard to direct because, suddenly, you're not around. The thing which I hate about directing is the waiting game, but you've really got to wait it out and be resilient and keep it going and keep everybody motivated.

Before I pitch any game, from spring training to Game 7 of the World Series, I'm scared to death.

After I directed for the first time, I wanted to call every director I'd ever worked with and apologize. In television you are tasked with shooting 42 minutes, or whatever, in eight days. That's not a lot of time.

Being a director is almost like being another sort of character, but you're out of view.

I think I'd have done better if I had been a little more relaxed-if I had not pressed quite so hard, if I'd not lost quite so much sleep.

I didn't go into the theater to be a producer, I went into the theater to be a director.

It's different being a director. I suppose, especially if it's a story you've written and you feel compelled to tell, in some ways it's a lot easier than acting because you're orchestrating the piece. As an actor, sometimes you're trying to second-guess what people want.

If I spread myself too thin, I'm not a good actor, I'm not a good mother, and I'm just really high-strung - and everybody hates me.

There's a lot of pressure to be the lead of a film. I have done it. It's not my favorite way to work.

If you become president, you're guaranteed to develop some nervous habit.

When you're a director, you really live whatever you do.

I suffer greatly from nerves. I have stage-fright badly, and it gets worse, but the stage is still my life.