Performance Tips Quotes

Karl Malden was quite a mentor. He taught me things he had learned from being in front of a camera so long.

I said to Mr. Pavarotti once ... a marvelous man and a great artist ... I said to him ... "Maestro, I'm having trouble closing out a note so that it's almost as thin as a butter knife ... finish it out quietly like that." I said, "I have trouble doing that. What do you think I should do?" He said, "Justa close up your mouth." That's all he said, and I fell on the floor. I thought he was gonna give me a dissertation.

When you act, it's better not to fake the emotion. It's better to find the emotion within yourself and your experiences, and see if you can bring that back to the surface, so that you can then literally hand it off to the character, and then let him run with it.

I've figured out what to do with my hands... onstage. I'm a percussion player, so I grab a tambourine as much as I can.

My advice to singers is always the same: 'Don't sing the song, sing the lyric.'

When I'm directing actors, I often find myself slipping in sports metaphors, like: 'Don't go for the punch line here, just put it up on a T-ball stand so she can hit it out of the park.'

I try to tell young guys - like, if I see a young guy pressing, I try to tell him to relax and play your game.

The old cliché in theater is, if you’re nervous, pick up a prop, which will immediately take you outside of your mind.

Acting advice is a bit like your parents teaching you how to drive a car. You know they're right, but you still kind of want them to shut up a bit.

As an actor, the first thing you're taught is, 'Don't look into the camera; ignore it.'

My dialogue coach said to do a Texas accent, you lean on the next word, and that was the clue to me.

Would you believe that Sammy Davis, Jr. taught me how to sing a ballad? 'You can be in an arena,' he said, 'and you should be able to hold their attention.'