In the theater one must sit in such a way that one sees the audience as a dark mass. Then it cannot bother one more than it does an actor. Nothing is more disturbing than being able to distinguish individuals in the crowd.
I cannot tell you that I ever fell in love with the theater as an audience. I fell in love with the theater as an actor for a period of time, but I have struggled as an audience, and I struggle more now than then. I was always a movie guy.
I always like to break out and address the audience. In 'The History Boys', for instance, without any ado, the boys will suddenly turn and talk to the audience and then go back into the action. I find it more adventurous doing it in prose than on the stage, but I like being able to make the reader suddenly sit up.
We must recognize the eloquence of our passions and refuse to be taken in. Instead of saying, 'That false friend always did despise me,' say: 'In my present state of agitation, I can't see clearly, I can't judge clearly; I am only a tragic actor who is declaiming for his own ears.' Then you will see the lights in the theater go out for lack of an audience, and the brilliant sets will be nothing more than painted cardboard.
As much as I like being part of commercial films that give me visibility with a wide audience, and love being the glamourous girl, at the end of the day, I am an actor, and nothing can be more satisfying than being appreciated for my craft.
The mind's eye can nowhere find anything more dazzling or more dark than in man; it can fix itself upon nothing which is more awful, more complex, more mysterious, or more infinite. There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
There’s nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his face… I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.
Something seems wrong to most people engaged in struggle when they see more people hurt on their own side than on the other side. They are used to reading this as an indication of defeat, and a complete mental readjustment is required of them. Within the new terms of struggle, victory has nothing to do with their being able to give more punishment than they take (quite the reverse); victory has nothing to do with their being able to punish the other at all; it has to do simply with being able, finally, to make the other move... Vengeance is not the point; change is.
For me, there's nothing more valuable as an actor, or better way to learn, than getting to perform in front of a live audience, no matter where you are. Whether it's on Broadway, in Florida, or doing a tour.
I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.
Comedy can be more difficult than drama. It requires more attention to timing. In the theater, you're always dependent on the audience for the energy, but in comedy the feedback you get is more important. You can judge by the quickness and the length of the laugh just where you stand with the audience.
The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.
Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.
There's one disturbing notion throughout India that light skin is more attractive than dark.
Even more ominous ... is the fact that since the Second World War a new kind of intellectual has emerged in large numbers. ... he is only minimally interested in the proper intellectual significance of images and objects. Such people are not really intellectuals, but visuals ... A visual is more interested in style than in content ... A visual does not feel a rioting crowd being machine-gunned by the police, he simply sees a brilliant news photograph.
The ordinary man is living a very abnormal life, because his values are upside down. Money is more important than meditation; logic is more important than love; mind is more important than heart; power over others is more important than power over one's own being. Mundane things are more important than finding some treasures which death cannot destroy.