Emotional Performance Quotes

I love acting. I'm actually a very emotional actor.

I don't get a chance to cry that often on film, so I was hoping that talent would come my way, that day. I cheated, I guess, when I just started looking at my technology device - my iPhone - to look at pictures of my kids, before I did the scene where I had to cry. That was a good trick that I found.

That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is....Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense...It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image - they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it - they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.

When I performed the songs in front of an audience at the end of each project and I knew the storytellers were in the crowd listening, that was hard.

If you give a good performance, something that gets some feeling across to people, that's such a rare gift. It's underestimated at this point in history, when the music biz is inevitably turning into a kind of politics.

I'm a big 'American Idol' watcher, and sometimes I like to watch 'America's Got Talent.' Those are big, corny admissions, but sometimes it's so fun to see those kids really sing their hearts out.

My vibrato was my weakness. With romantic pieces, I could be a lot more schmaltzy. My wider vibrato fit that.

I sing the National Anthem, while I'm standing, over your body, hold you like a python.

Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!

During a rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony the members of the orchestra were so overwhelmingly moved by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini that they rose as one man and applauded him. When the spontaneous cheering has subsided, Toscanini turned to his men, tears glistening in his eyes. "Please . . . please! Don't do this! You see, gentlemen, it isn't me you should applaud. It's Beethoven!"

I always feel on film you have to earn a ballad, because it's a different kind of pace.

When I hear a singer, I want them to be passionate and intense, and soul singers like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett always seemed to do exactly that.

I am not a trained singer, but I always sing from my heart.

Singing from the heart is my only goal.

Even if I sing like a robot, it is still an emotional robot.

I think I'm a soulful singer.

I do sometimes wonder if people think, 'Oh we'll have her because she cries well.' The odd thing is I don't really know where it comes from. If the script is good, I find I can usually cry without too much trouble - in fact, the hard thing is trying to get me to stop. But I'm not really a crier in real life. I'm not a dramatic person, you see.

I've always been very emotional when I sing.

You could feel the place going crazy because we hadn't been on stage together for maybe 35 years and the audience could just feel us in the darkness come on and they went nuts. It made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck and we sang Sit on My Face, which I thought was wonderfully appropriate for George's memorial, and then we bowed and we showed our bare asses.

Meryl Streep is my favorite actor. She is so classy and a brilliant actress. Her performance in 'Sophie's Choice' just kills me.

I can watch movies that I've been in, and if there's an emotional scene, I remember specifically what I was using, what I was thinking about, because I am very specific in how I work.

The average scene in a film, you have to shoot it 15, 20 times. That means you got to laugh or cry 15, 20 times.

When I am most successful as a guitar player is when I'm able to just sort of lose myself. You stop thinking about technique or anything like that and just trying to evoke the emotion of that song brings, which is a very strong emotion for me.

Most actors will tell you, when they've got emotional stuff that's hard to carry around for hours and hard to try to do justice too, it just beats your butt.

I don't think I've done anything quite like 'Gypsy' before. Especially the honest way that it is written.