Performance Quotes

Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance.

If the seams are showing, there is something wrong with the performance or the construction of the piece. This idea is completely at odds with our modern visual experience, because everything today is based on montage.

So I won an Oscar. It's amazing. I've got that for the rest of my life for a performance I am proud of. It nearly killed me. I am really proud of the film. That's it, moving on.

I take the longest to get ready of anyone. I've been going in two hours before the show every performance.

I always find that 90% of the performance, for me, is about what comes from inside.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.

That's the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together.

A lawyer's performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and women.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

On my best days, such as when I was a junior in high school coming off a 42-point performance and near triple-double, my dad was there to tell me I haven't arrived yet and bring me back to reality.