Theatrical Flexibility Quotes

The cinema is a very truthful medium because the camera doesn't let you get away with anything. On stage, you can even loaf a little, if you're so inclined.

My sense of myself is that I'm a character actor, and character actors are ready, willing, and able to do anything, to be totally different from themselves. That's my job, to be ready. I'm some kind of first responder.

In the past, if you did film, you couldn't do stage, and if you did film, you certainly didn't do television. You had to pick what you wanted to be. Now it seems like we can bounce around, not only between genres, but between mediums, and I like that. I like change and I like a good story.

I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate.

Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.

I've had experiences where I wasn't allowed to change words around at all because you have to say everything, exactly as written on the page. That's not fun for me. For me, part of being an actor is being able to contribute to a character's rhythms. If there's room to explore, you find a happy medium.

I'm not rigid about directorial changes: I judge them on a case-by-case basis. In the case of a play whose text is widely familiar, I'm open to drastic changes that may alter the author's meaning, perhaps even considerably. If the results don't work, then I say so.

I've come from theatre and you have different productions of a text in theatre. It's not unusual.

Everyone can do a character the way they want to do it, unless the director tells them not to, which isn't very common. I like to do my characters, if it's not specific in the script, as myself.