A Quote by Louis Gossett, Jr.

The only time I was really free was when the director said 'Action' in front of a camera or on the stage, and that's when I flew. — © Louis Gossett, Jr.
The only time I was really free was when the director said 'Action' in front of a camera or on the stage, and that's when I flew.
I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.
I feel that I would perform really well if there was no camera in front of me. But when there is one, and the director says 'Action!' I freeze.
On stage I'm slightly nervous than when I'm in front of camera. Because when on the stage, the mind can't waiver but at the same time, the energy to be on the stage makes me feel alive.
'Scandal' has been, for me, the most consistent time I've ever logged in front of a camera. I grew up in the theater, and I feel very confident and comfortable on the stage and in front of a live audience, but the camera is a very different medium.
Acting time is like flight time: You can work on a simulator, you can rehearse, but unless you're really in front of the camera or on a stage - that's when you really learn how to work it.
Neil Mahoney was definitely the visionary in taking 'Freak Dance' from stage to screen. He made it more cinematic. He brought the choreography, all the ways to shoot that. I was more the director of actors. I was in front of the camera directing, and he was behind the camera directing.
I've ended up spending more time in front of a camera than on stage, but the stage is where I come from.
I really enjoy blocking and staging. I think most of visual storytelling is camera placement and how to stage action around the camera.
Every time I go in front of the camera, I have this fear of 'Oh my God, how am I going to tackle this? The director is going to say 'action' and I'm going to just keep standing there; I won't know what to do.' That's a constant fear I have as an actor.
I'm comfortable in front of a camera, and I'm used to being watched, although that kind of bugged me at first. On the stage, though, I'm scared. I really get frightened in front of people.
I don't like getting up in front of people and being the loud one when everybody's out quiet and you're the only one talking. I'm not a fan of that. I'm fine when I get in front of a camera, I don't care. You'll never see me on stage. Not at all.
What's cool is that Oprah is the same person on stage and in front of a camera as she is off stage and behind the scenes. She speaks the same way on camera as she does off camera.
I really trust the authenticity of real people and my job is to get them to be themselves in front of the camera. Often what happens is, you'll get a newcomer in front of the camera and they'll freeze up or they imitate actors or other performances that they've admired and so they stop becoming themselves. And so my job as the director is just to always return them to what I first saw in them, which was simply an uncensored human being.
The camera course was a bit crap. But when I was in drama school, I wasn't interested. I wanted to be a stage actress. I was not interested in learning camera craft. But then you throw yourself in the deep end when you do get a job in front of the camera because you have absolutely no idea what you're doing, and it is a skill.
I suffer from a more complex, persistent fear. It manifests itself in nerves, and on film the camera sees even the tiniest evidence of this. So you have to learn that when the director calls 'Action,' you don't go to this place of tension, but somehow you become free.
While working with a camera crew supervising flight testing of advanced aircraft at Edward's Air Force Base, California, the camera crew filmed the landing of a strange disc object that flew in over their heads and landed on a dry lake nearby. A camera crewman approached the saucer, it rose up above the area and flew off at a speed faster than any known aircraft.
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