Let me make something clear: I can't do anything in particular to make others laugh. I do what is necessary for a character. The body language of the character may make others laugh.
I started under my master, Etienne Decroux, who taught me a new grammar for mime he called statuary mime. This grammar brings style creations. Without it, no art survives.
I use my hands a lot while acting.
When I grew up, one of comedy idols was Rowan Atkinson, who of course is Mr. Bean and uses physical comedy. Same with Jim Carrey. Both of those guys. And Peter Sellers. Most of my comedy idols are physical comics.
I love using drama and humour.
Mime is an art beyond words. It is the art of the essential. And you cannot lie. You have to show the truth.
I don't profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance.
It's about timing and rhythm. But who could be better than Chaplin or Keaton?
What sculptors do is represent the essence of gesture. What is important in mime is attitude.
It's my job to be the Pierrot, the clown, in the theatrical sense.
Bob's work gleaned from hoofing, from vaudeville, from ballet.
I went to school in the 1970s, and there was a lot of physical theater in those days.
Life is a cycle, and mime is particularly suitable for showing fluidity, transformation, metamorphosis. Words can keep people apart; mime can be a bridge between them.
Mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities.
Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.
I've resigned myself to the fact that the world needs clowns, too, and I was born to be one of them. And it is an important role in our society to play.
I don’t understand why people take pictures of mimes. Everyone looks like a mime in a picture.
When I'm on stage, that's a job. It's acting, it's faking, just making fun of yourself, telling bad jokes - I'm pretty good in this - dancing, just to entertain.
What I loved about wrestling was just being foolish, so I studied clown. I studied clown. I studied the art of clown. I actually did my thesis on clown.
Physical expression was my first language: Before I was an actor, I was a dancer, an acrobat, a mime and a street performer.
I enjoy doing physical comedy.
I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70.
Never get a mime talking. He won't stop.
My portrayal of Fagin was all to do with my experience in comedy and revue.
My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute.
