Dana Walden Quotes

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

Musicals allow a depth of emotion that you don't get in another form of acting, the chord changes, the lyrics really affect people, so that in two hours, you've forgotten about things.

Within a safe environment, the theater, you can have a big ride, big ups and downs, intensity, warmth, humanity, laughs, tears - you want that full range of emotion.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

I like making stories and characters that people can relate to. I also like giving the audience a departure from whatever they're thinking about in their life and enjoying a show or a movie.

Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.

I think that's what we're all trying to do as actors, is create some sort of passion from people and allow them to have something to really care about and something they enjoy and look forward to on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, whatever it is, where you get to sit down and escape.

Acting has always been such escapism for me.

I want you to laugh and cry. That's what I do.

People don't go to the movies to get the news, people don't go to the movies to learn a lesson. People go to the movie to get an emotional experience.

I always try to make my characters people, and yet I always want to entertain.

Acting and singing are actually very similar because they're both telling a story.

If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.

When I go to a film, you're taking it easy and you let things wash over you. That's what cinema's all about. You get involved in a world that's being created in front of you.

If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it's got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It's not therapy - it's supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.

With acting, I started very young, and I'd performed for a lot of children in boarding schools, late at night after the dormitory lights were out. I'd have a flashlight, and I'd be Count Dracula, or Shakespeare, or Yogi Bear, and leap from bunk to bunk. I loved the laughter; I liked the way it made people feel.

Acting is like free therapy! Trying to make people laugh or cry can be inspiring.

It's not that we like sad movies that make us feel like, 'Oh, my God, what a bummer.' We like emotionally moving experiences. It's nothing new. It's catharsis. It goes back to the Greeks.

That's why I love doing television because it's something that fans and viewers can sit down each week and get to know your character and get to know the show and get to know what's going on and fall in love with you all over again, like they did in previous shows.

Television lets audiences deeply connect with characters.

I am not interested in entertaining people. I think being an actor provides an opportunity to give people an experience they can connect to, reflect on, learn from, laugh at.

I know that when I watch TV, I want to be transformed and transported, not just by the characters that I grow to love over the hours and seasons of watching but also the world that it plants me into.

It's people politics, people dynamics that make a show really good, whether it's 'Desperate Housewives' or 'Lost' or 'The Sopranos.' It's the people we've grown to love or otherwise.

People come to the theatre to be excited and uplifted - I want to inspire my audience.

The place I begin is with story. If the audience doesn't care about that, then it doesn't matter how amazing the spectacle is. My central philosophy is that people go to the movies to be told a story, not to see stuff blow up.