Henry Rollins Quotes

I love, love, love live performance. It's like walking a tightrope without the net. You better be on point; you better be balanced. You better have rehearsed it and seen it from every vantage so you can do what you do best. I do love film because it's up front in your face, and hopefully you've got a great editor.

I love, love, love to rehearse, but when you're rehearsing and then you go do it at night, it's a very weird thing, because you're incorporating all these new things.

I really am a theater person. That means you put something out there, and you let it go. Tomorrow night is a new performance.

I am so excited to perform; I am so ready to perform; I love live performances! I think it's something so different from a track; live is just so unique and cool because the energy is just so different. I cannot wait to have live performances.

I think one of the mistakes actors make is we're so focused on what we're going to say.

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?

I never used to want rehearsals, because I was like, 'Oh, no. I'm more spontaneous. I'm a natural. I'm a one-take person.' But that was because I didn't have any training. I was going off instinct.

If I'm going to rehearse, I don't necessarily rehearse in costume.

I really do like being on stage. Compared to television I have a lot more control - it's a lot more relaxed and loose.

I don't prepare for a live show.

Giving auditions is a great exercise. They will provide you with a script, and you prepare in 10 minutes. And you perform in front of 100 other people.

Theatre is for you if you truly want to act and test yourself. There is no room for error as you are performing in front of a live audience.

Some celebrities, it's interesting, because they're fantastic playing a character when somebody is writing the lines for them, and they're amazing actors, but they're not as comfortable on television in front of a live audience and just having a conversation and being themselves.

In theater, there's a lot of discipline involved in doing eight shows a week for a year and a half. It's nice to be able to bring some of that bag of tools with you over to the film world, where you don't have the rehearsal, you don't have an audience. You don't have a month of rehearsal to examine these words, and you meet the guy who's going to play your brother the morning that you shoot the scene. So you need a bag of tools.

My ideal setting is I walk from the streets, backstage, and straight onto the stage. Two minutes, and I am on the stage. That way, in my head I have gone from my world and then into a social setting with my friends.

When I do an hour-and-a-half show, if I don't improvise 20 minutes worth of new material each night, I feel I've let myself down.

I love TV now, and 'Modern Family,' but what draws me back to theater is that initial instinct of wanting to be a theater actor. I love the challenge of starting a play and not stopping until you finish. I love the immediacy of trusting your instincts.

I've been acting since I could function. I got into acting to get attention as a child.

On television, you have an intimate moment with the camera. In theater, you are making something live with people there. My brain doesn't understand that you don't get another take ever. I'm finally learning on TV that you can do something over if you make a mistake.

You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.

To me, the stand up part in my life is great. I know I can do that. When I get an acting chance, I'm really thrilled.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

I'm a very shy person, and I never tried to do theater. I've been asked many, many times by the most incredible authors in America to do theater. And I always said no, not knowing what it is to be on the stage and to do theater.

Just me onstage with a mike having an intimate relationship with the audience. I don't get nervous for that. I just get excited.