Theatre Directing Quotes

There's a great charm in theatre; I enjoyed doing it for twelve years and did lots of plays. At this chapter of my life, I am a cinema actor, and I would like to continue to be so, and at some point I would return to the theatre.

I finished my university, was part of NSD, and did full length plays on stages.

I didn't aspire to be on Broadway.

I was very lucky. I left college, and Richard Eyre was in charge of the National Theatre. I was offered the lead in 'The Seagull' with no experience and went on to do five plays there.

There are so many huge roles in the theatre: if you've got the option to play Hedda Gabler on stage, why wouldn't you choose that over a three-line part in a Hollywood film as somebody's maid or somebody's wife or somebody's best friend?

In my 20s, I was a monk. I was obsessed with theatre, not being famous, not with television. I was 20 years on the stage before I set foot in front of a camera.

I did go to a film school in Sarajevo. I studied film and theatre directing. There was a war raging in the country while I was studying, and we did not have neither electricity nor cinemas for three and a half years.

I directed before I was even in television; I directed in the theatre for seven years, so that was my trade anyway. But in the UK, I've given up any hope of being considered a director.

After I did television, I just felt I didn't have any more to give to the medium. And so I went back to the theatre and started directing and producing, and found I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than acting.

I remember my first review in London said I was the next Peter Brook. I said: 'No way. I'm not Peter Brook. I don't have the maturity, the experience, the intelligence. Don't burden me.'

I had studied at the NYU School of the Arts under Lloyd Richards, who also worked with the Negro Ensemble Company.

I think I'll always prefer theater to working in front of the camera. It seems a more distilled form of the craft.

I went to UCLA as pre-med. When I was there my freshman year, I auditioned for a play and got it, and I was so passionate. I just loved acting so much that I decided to switch majors and pursue acting.

I'm a kid who did stock and summer youth theater where we'd put up two shows and you had no rehearsal. I've also understudied, where I've had to go on with no rehearsal.

I haven't appeared on stage in quite a long time and I don't have any immediate plans to do so, but I'm always interested in going back.

My earliest experience was reading Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at 8, you know, with a bunch of kids on my steps - on the stoops - and knowing that I wanted to direct them saying the lines. I don't really know how to articulate that 'cause there wasn't someone to show me.

I'm not saying that theatre is a doomed profession, but if a person wants to stay in it very long, they'd better develop theatre skills beyond just acting.

Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college.

I didn't particularly aim to be a Shakespeare actor, but I suppose I had a certain gift or it; I certainly got offered lots of it. I liked Complicite and Shared Experience and Kick Theatre, and all the small theatre companies that were getting going. I wanted to be like that, making original theatre.

I started in theater. I did theater professionally for seven years with my company before I started doing 'Friends.' I was waiting tables and doing theater.

Unless you are wealthy, you cannot afford to act or direct one play and remain unemployed the rest of the time.

I studied at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano; I was a theatre actor.

I think since I was in drama school, I wanted to direct in the theatre. When you are an actor, you just have to open your eyes and you start to learn a lot about how to survive on set and what's important and how to tell a story. Directing is really about putting yourself out there, to be slapped in a way. You know that in the kitchen, you're gonna get burned. It's very scary but very exciting as well. If you have something to say, you have nothing to lose and you probably learn from the experience.

To be totally honest, I thought I would have a Broadway debut in the distant, distant future, maybe in my 60s or 70s when somebody revived one of my off-Broadway plays with a star.

I love working in television and film, but it's completely different. The theater will always be my home. So I would love to be a lady who gets to work in all of the mediums and who calls the theater her home.