Acting quotes
Corey Parker Acting Quotes
“One cannot always create subconsciously and with
inspiration. No such genius exists in the world. Therefore our art teaches us
first of all to create consciously and rightly. The more you have of conscious
creative moments in your role, the more chance you will have of the flow of
inspiration.”
Stanislavski
“But the
ultimate execution of it is almost ninety-five percent will. All the
work before that is you laying the groundwork, asking the questions, understanding
what you need to do, understanding what you need to look at, finding the logic
to whatever needs to happen, all the character work, all the emotional through
line. Once you get there, it’s will. “
Philip
Seymour Hoffman
“When you play a role, you don’t see yourself
doing it at first, but then you get things from yourself that you ordinarily
wouldn’t get.”
Robert
DeNiro
“Listening is everything. Listening is the
whole deal, that’s what I think. And I mean that in terms of before you work,
after you work, in between work with your friends, your mother. It’s
everything. And it’s where you learn everything.”
Meryl
Streep
“Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your
doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any
of yourself safely on the shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored
territory.”
Alan
Alda
“One of the reasons people sell out so quickly
is because even the talented think they’re frauds. It’s a culture that doesn’t
encourage people to believe in the work they do. You’re told to second guess
yourself all the time. That’s where I think a little hostility and arrogance
can save you.”
Sean
Penn
“What
does the camera capture when it looks at me? I’ll leave that for others to
assess. But staring back at the lens from within myself, I feel so much of what
I’ve otherwise kept hidden and filtered. The things I don’t like about myself,
the things I do like about myself, the things I’m not but I’d like to be, the
things I am but don’t want others to know about—they’re all there, percolating
inside. Courage and cowardice, strength
and weakness, fear and joy, love and hate—that’s what makes up the actor, So
that’s available to the camera.”
Sidney
Poitier
"If one has talent, to be able to exercise that talent
in a room when you do a scene with someone, then -two months later-do another
scene with somebody else--it's a marvelous thing for people who are not at
work. It's also a marvelous thing for some poor slob who is in a hit. Because
you're playing that role every night, you're not expanding, your chief duty is
to be fresh.
Montgomery Clift
"Any good actor uses the principles of Stanislavski, no
matter what they do. They may do it unwittingly, but they do it. You can call
that 'method,' I don't care what you call it, but it's about being truthful.
Every time you find a truthful actor, you find someone who bears out some of
the realism that Stanislavski bothered to put on paper."
Montgomery Clift
Here are a few
quotes that reduce acting theory to some basics.
"After
you've achieved a basic reality, you have to know what you're saying means to
you. That is how you work on a part."
Sanford Meisner
"Who
are you? Why are you there? What do you want? How are you going to get
it?"
on acting,
Marian Seldes
"Where
you find a challenge is where you approach development..."
Meisner
"Create
the world for yourself."
"Go
onstage with your purpose clearly in mind."
Swoozie Kurtz
"You
must have every character believing in himself."
Sir Laurence
Olivier
"Start
your work by 'not knowing.'"
George Morrison
"Make vague things definite."
"No
body becomes a character. You can't act unless you are what you are--and you
are who you are."
Marlon Brando
"How
the part is played will change radically depending upon the unique background,
experiences, personality and priorities emanating from the character and the
actor who is playing the part.It's the who-am-I of the character as well
as the who you are as a person that brings in the nuances of individual
behavior for that character."
Ivana
On objective:
"You have to change the other person in
order to get what you want."
Ivana
"If
an objective is valid, it will stimulate not only your feelings but the will to
do something about it, imaginatively suggesting many possible actions."
Uta Hagen
"Tell
the truth."
Lee Strasberg/
Sanford Meisner/ Stella Adler
"The
play is not in the words. The play is behind the words."
Stella Adler
"An
action is something you give yourself, and something you can DO."
Stella Adler
"The
strongest audience response comes when the actor is involved in what is
happening."
Lee Strasberg
"...to
receive impulses from imaginary stimuli, and to make these real--that is
believeable to himself."
Strasberg
"If
you really know why you're doing what you're doing, it comes to life. But only
of you're really doing it."
William Esper
"Grab
the moment and make a damn choice--even if it's wrong."
Laura San
Giacomo
"You
don't get anywhere, unless you start making decisions."
Martin Scorsese
” the moment you lose communication with
yourself onstage is the moment when experiencing ends and playacting begins. So
however many performances you give, whoever it is you are portraying, you must
use your own feelings. Infringement of this law is tantamount to the actor
murdering the character he is playing; depriving it of the pulsating, living
human soul which alone gives life to a dead role ” ~ Konstantin Stanislavski
"There is a
vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you
into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this
expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any
other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your
business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with
other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges
that motivate you. Keep the channel open...” "
Martha
Graham
DeNiro
There is
a certain combination of anarchy and discipline in the way I work.
Don`t talk it (a scene) away, do it!
The characters that I play are real. They are
real so they have as much right to be portrayed as any other characters.
Pacino
“We start to
realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don't
care if it's a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath -
whatever. Even a meal you like, or a friend you want to call. That helps us
solve all this stuff in our head.”
I`m constantly striving to break through to
something new. You try to maintain a neutral approach to your work, and not be
too hard on yourself
I think you
start to prepare the minute you read something.
My favorite
thing to do is not act - it's that simple.
There is no
re-inventing the wheel.
What
happens is things come to you - director, script - and if you respond to it,
it's because it's tapping into some part of what's inside you, and different
roles tap into different parts.
“I
was doing a scene in class and Peggy Feury stopped the scene. I started telling
her I was having a problem, she said, “No! You’re problem is not your problem.
HIS (your character’s) problem is your problem!”
The minute
that you're not learning I believe you're dead.
At the end,
the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could
drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount
of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living
by the rules.
“It is going on the stage and
saying, “I’m going to follow through. I’m going to go through with it come hell
or high water. I will not let myself slide back at the moment I feel insecure.
I will go on. I will make vague things definite.”
--Strasberg
“At such moments you have to have
objects that are simple and yet sufficiently convincing to keep your
concentration going.”
Strasberg
“At such moments you have to have
objects that are simple and yet sufficiently convincing to keep your
concentration going.”
“If you never fail, you are either the most
naturally blessed performer of all time…or you’re staying in a comfort zone.
Every time you fail, you learn. Every time you learn, you grow. Every time you
grow, you get closer to being who you want to be on stage and in life. Crave
failure. Run headfirst into it so you can plow through it faster.”
—
|
improviser Chris Gethard
“What does the camera capture when it looks at me? I’ll leave
that for others to assess. But staring back at the lens from within myself, I
feel so much of what I’ve otherwise kept hidden and filtered. The things I
don’t like about myself, the things I do like about myself, the things I’m not
but I’d like to be, the things I am but don’t want others to know about—they’re
all there, percolating inside. Courage
and cowardice, strength and weakness, fear and joy, love and hate—that’s what
makes up the actor, So that’s available to the camera.”
Sidney
Poitier
|
“It is going on the stage and saying, “I’m going to follow
through. I’m going to go through with it come hell or high water. I will not
let myself slide back at the moment I feel insecure. I will go on.“
--Strasberg
Comments
Post a Comment