Theatre Quotes

I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul.

Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.

I come out of repertory theatre so I've been working under pressure my whole career.

My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.

The real thing is, you should be seeing these plays in the Theatre. That's what they were written for. That's where the enjoyment is. Studying them is no enjoyment whatsoever.

I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.

My dream is to eventually open a children's theatre.

Choosing to be in the theatre was a way to put my roots down somewhere with other people. It was a way to choose a new family.

It was in New York, and I've always wanted to film in New York. And the writer was a teenage friend of mine. We did youth theatre together when we were 16 and always had a dream of making a film together. And ten years later, we've done it. So it's great.

I never thought of myself in comedy at all... I loved going to the theatre and seeing people wearing beautiful clothes come down the staircase and start to dance.

In fact, one was so booked out we went from March and were to go till November, but the pantomime was booked so they transferred the show to the Prince of Wales Theatre because it was so packed out, and it ran on from there.

I love doing movies but I loved doing theatre just as much.

What I want to give in the theatre is beauty, that's what I want to give.

There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.

Inside I never said I wanted to do theatre or be an actor.

I think film likes me better than the theatre does for some reason.

It's really a grand old, legendary theatre where the spirits of like Judy Garland and all these great performers have been. The clubs are way more underground.

I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

I knew nothing about film at all. I suppose the biggest surprise is all these things. In the theatre we sort of do, I might do two or three key interviews and that would be it.

I tell my children to avoid theatre and go into cinema and TV.

My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company's Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.

At the turn of the century theatre does not have to be prescriptive.

When you combine the men and women deployed from our military installations with activated reservists and members of the National Guard, Georgia is contributing more personnel to the theatre than any other State in our Union.

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien.

I figured as I got older, the good roles for women would be in the theatre. So 15 years ago I started building a Broadway career to try and develop the chops to be accepted as a great theatrical actress.

When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place and we should keep the light out of it.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.