Theater Discipline Quotes

The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.

The great thing about the stage is that you have a structured month-long rehearsal period where you're going in every day. You have to have lots of run-throughs with theater because there are no second takes in front of a live audience.

There's such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn't appropriate another's inventions.

When you're an actor working in the theater, you would never say anything to the writer, never alter the dialogue, never dream to ask for changes.

Every night, you fight for that standing ovation at the end of the night. And if you do something wrong, the domino effect is chaotic. And you must not allow yourself to make mistakes whatsoever. So in that case, theater, it's fascinating because of the discipline that you need.

What I love about the theater is the work ethic. I grew up with it.

London has such an unbelievable respect for theater, where L.A. does not. You go to a play here, and the dude next to you is sleeping. In London, if you're not in your seat when it starts, they lock the door. In Los Angeles, you can stroll into school late with a cup of coffee. In London, you get your butt to class on time.

I think the theater is basically the boot camp for the actor. If you can survive the rigors of an eight-show-a-week schedule and be at your best all the time, you can handle virtually everything because no other craft requires you to get it right every single time.

I think theater probably remains my favorite, sort of where my soul lives. It takes a lot of discipline, and you have to show up eight shows a week, no matter how you feel physically, mentally, emotionally - there's nobody to cut around that: you've got to tell the story yourself for two hours.

The discipline of live theater - doing the same perfect thing night after night, eight times a week - never ceases to amaze me

I love nothing better than to get all the nuts and bolts out of the way - show up on time, with lines learned, clear on what the director expects of me, with my buttons buttoned and my jewelry on correctly - and then I completely commit to play acting.

It takes stamina to get up like an athlete every single night, seven to eight performances a week, 20 weeks in a row. And there are many young performers who only learn their craft in the two minute bits it takes to film a scene. You never learn the arc of storytelling, the arc of a character that way.

In theater, there's a lot of discipline involved in doing eight shows a week for a year and a half. It's nice to be able to bring some of that bag of tools with you over to the film world, where you don't have the rehearsal, you don't have an audience. You don't have a month of rehearsal to examine these words, and you meet the guy who's going to play your brother the morning that you shoot the scene. So you need a bag of tools.