On-Set Pressure Quotes

When a show's already established, and a director comes to set, it can be quite the intimidating experience.

It's hard to act terrified when you have 200 crew members around you.

For me, when I did 'Thor,' they changed my lines at the last minute, and then I had to speak with an English accent - and it was horrifying. I was in front of a crew of 250 people on my first day - never happened to me before.

I think there's nothing worse than telling actors what to do in front of everyone, because then on the next take, everyone's waiting to see if you do that ... Everyone watches. It's just the worst thing.

I remember I had a low point when I was working on a soap opera, 'General Hospital,' five years ago. It was my first real job, and it was so overwhelming. You would work five days a week and have to learn sometimes up to 30 pages of new dialogue a night, then have one take to shoot it all, the next day.

I never want to do nudity that’s gratuitous. Girls look so much better in lingerie or a t-shirt and leave the rest up to the imagination. I make it clear that I have a line. Everyone tries to push you, and it’s easy to get talked into doing those things. I’ll just walk off-set. But not everyone realizes they can do that.

I generally make a point to finish my shot in the initial couple of takes with the goal that the execution would be genuine, and it naturally makes a great deal of strain.

I've now learned that the most stressful day of filming a TV series is the first day of a new episode. You haven't quite banked the one you just wrapped and are wondering, 'Did I do that right?' 'Could I have done that better?'

Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.

In television, there's no time. You can't walk around and get into the mood. Nobody is going to wait for you. They're like, "Let's go!," and I'm like, "Wait, I haven't gotten in the mood!"

It's funny, because when you work on a set, everyone is watching you. You are being observed by everyone.

'Glee Project' and 'Glee' have the same spirit, but they're both harder in their own ways. With 'Glee Project,' there's more pressure because you're being judged in everything you do. When you film 'Glee,' you go to the studio and have an off day, and it's OK - you're still going to be there; you take as many chances as you need.

With a sitcom, everyday you do a run through, and people are judging you, and the scripts are being changed nightly, nightly, nightly.

It's always hard as an actor I think to be just on the set and have the kind of confidence to be like, 'Yeah, I did that. That went perfectly. That's great.' That's more confidence than I have.