Performance Strategy Quotes

I was always against starting the show with new material because the fans don't know it. They just look at you, and it's not explosive.

Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer] wasn't Darla in the beginning, by the way. Darla was just Vampire Girl #1. But I just started adding a little bit of glee and joy into everything she did and just relied on the fact that the prosthetic does the work. And then I didn't have to be scary. The prosthetic was scary enough. I just had to smile and show off Darla's really great dental work.

Obviously there is stuff that I wouldn't play in a club that I play at festivals, and vice-versa, but my sets are still dominated largely by my own music. I think that's what makes me stand out a bit. My music is also festival- and club-friendly, so it generally works out well.

When you get to set, you don't try to play the plot; you just play the character.

I just go out there and do what I do and try and hit my spots.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.

When I am performing live, I walk into a room, and I just try to get a feel for the vibe, and I am coming from different angles musically. I might come with a new song, I might come with some hip-hop, with some R&B. Once I find my way, then I am hitting you, and hitting you all night.

I don't jump on to singing every song of mine because I feel that will make my music repetitive.

My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.

I don't believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off. I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more.

I don't want to just go out and do song to song to song. I like to create things before the song actually kicks in, little things you do to excite the crowd.

I've always done a bass and drum solo that lasts about 10 minutes. The main thing is to use it only when you need to.

When we began to tour, no one expected me to be a part of the band, so I used that as a tool, and would start the set off-stage or in the audience, as a surprise, because no one expected this little girl to get up and rock the way I do.

If you're playing the character, you could say to yourself in 16 different ways, What if that didn't bother me? What if I knew exactly what he was talking about? What if I didn't get excited?

I have always been good at auditioning, but maybe because I had a good trick at the beginning. I would pretend that my agent gave me the wrong scene or lines. They would take pity on me and hand me the right scene. I would act like I had never seen this before - and then do pretty well considering I had already rehearsed it.

It's a simple and an effective way of getting everyone on the same page, prepared and paying attention to the gag. People just get into that frame of mind of you doing impressions. It can take a minute or two for an audience to catch on when you aren't doing one.

'Entertainment Tonight' would send me out to do interviews with musicians like Sting and Coldplay, and I was able to watch how they plan their shows. The late Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead always had a game plan, but he also was flexible if he had to change something at the last minute.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

If I have a choice whether to do the show or throw a straight pass, and we're going to get the basket either way, I'm going to do the show.

On 'Idol,' I understood that everyone wanted to hear my vocals, so I stuck with the ballads.

"Cannonball Adderley said, 'First 20 minutes we'll jazz out, then the last hour it's gonna be songs that people paid to see.' Which is why he was driving a Rolls-Royce."

I separate the performer from the private citizen because it works for me. That gives the surprise element to my show. It doesn't change my playing. But if in a business suit they would think I was crazy. It's like putting Marlene Dietrich in a housedress.

Why, in such a case, should the performer essay any sort of considered approach at all?

At the end of the day, they're happy if you do the obvious songs towards the end of the set and you've got to try and make yourself happy by doing certain songs at the front end of the set.

Sometimes if you get 'em too drunk they don't pay no attention to what you're doin' anyways, so you might as well just do old songs. But if you get one that's paying attention, sometimes we'll do some new material.