Theater Acting Quotes

To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.

I am constantly asked, 'What's the difference between acting in the theater and acting in film?' The only answer I can give is the space - you adapt to the space. But acting is acting.

I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater.

The truth of the matter is I stayed in L.A. raising my children, and when they went to college, I packed my bags along with them and came to New York and looked for parts in the theatre, because that's always what I preferred doing.

My mom had me when she was 19 or 20. And my father was 22 or something. They were working on whatever they could, both of them aiming to be actors in theater.

Doing theater makes you feel like a real actor.

I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided.

I wish that there was a program in college that taught you what to do about getting head shots, how to get an agent, how to get a manager, how to - none of that was taught. It was all your craft, and I'm very appreciative that they taught the craft in theater, but film and television are completely different than theater.

Theater acting is an operation with a scalpel, movie acting is an operation with a laser

It's hard being a Broadway actor going into film where you have to tone everything down. In theater, everything you're taught is to be big and broad and make everyone feel like they are right next to you, even in the last row of seats.

Movies are this thing that came into my life, and it still feels pretend in some way. I kind of do this thing, and I never really accepted this idea that I'm a film actor. That's what I do. I feel like I'm a theater actor that started doing films. Most people have never seen me in a play. They're fun, though.

I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies.

The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive.

I want to play the mean girl one day - or the mean gay!

In theater acting, you leave that night and what it was is what it was.

In theater, you're allowed to take your time and sit in a role for a month before you have to share it with anybody. In film and TV, you have to just kind of show up and be ready to do that, which, to me, is very strange and crazy.

I'm not trying to take anything away from film acting, because it's also really hard, and I worship the people who are great at it. But to actually have to go out on stage night after night and do it with your audience right there is so wild and scary and exciting and fun and all the things that I remember loving about it.

While I love musical theater, it wasn't the right fit for me. It's so competitive, and I was at such a disadvantage, having started performing when I was 17.

My mom thought I might be good for voiceover. She thought I had a cute voice, so maybe I could do a cartoon or something. And while we were looking into that, we also thought I should get into theater acting, so I tried it and the first audition I went on, I booked it. And it kind of just snowballed from there.

People say, 'What are your hobbies?' I say, 'I've been doing shows ever since I was a kid.' When I left college, all I wanted to be was a musical theater chick. I auditioned tons. It just didn't pan out.

Immediately after school, I did a lot of regional theater. I was in Berkeley and Princeton and Minneapolis and all over the country doing wonderful plays for the local audiences.

A Dumont actor was considered to be too stilted - the way we Dumont actors used to speak.

We film in front of a live audience, and I was a theater actor before I got into television, so I like that.

I earn a lot of money in England doing voice-overs, especially in documentaries. Turn on the Discovery Channel here, and you'll hear my voice a lot. It subsidizes my vice of acting in the theater.

When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.