A Quote by Mara Wilson

Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the directors eyes, you get it right does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.
Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the director's eyes, you 'get it right' does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.
It's interesting to me because theater is, on any given day, 10,000 times harder than film and television. And that's not to say film or television can't be hard or challenging; it's emotional to do the same thing over and over and over. But in terms of stamina, there is nothing like an eight-show week to separate the men from the boys.
If I'm really considering doing film from now on then that is the smart thing to do, or you can go either way. You can just do the same character over and over again and make a different comedy like over and over again.
It takes a little more time to get into the role, but not very much more. In making a record you don't have the sense of projection over a distance as in an opera house. We have this microphone and this magnifies all details of a performance, all exaggerations. In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater.
I've always known from the beginning of my acting career that you only get an acting job if you've got something to learn about it. If you don't do it well, you'll be condemned to doing the same role over and over and over again. If you do it mediocre, you'll have to do it again.
I'd say that that is a challenge, but it also is, again, it's helpful. It's helpful to have the discipline of, okay, I'm doing, I'm doing something that's quite precise over here, working the puppet, and I'm doing something that's very imprecise and creative and unleashed over here, which is the comedy side. And it's kind of nice to allow your brain to be doing those two things at once.
You know that thing where you repeat a word over and over until it just sounds like utter gibberish? That's what doing a day of press on a film is like. Ten interviews in a row, all asking pretty much the same questions until you find yourself giving pretty much the same answers.
I'm not expecting much work in Hollywood, to be honest. People stick to film because they tend to get offered the same roles over and over again, and it's safe. But I'm not interested in doing that.
When you're taking a fence on a horse, you don't think much; your body does all the thinking, and you're over or you're not over. It's much the same when you are doing a tricky thing with a pen. There are times when I'm writing very, very fast.
My favourite film is probably 'Star Wars'. I do love 'Starship Troopers', it is a great film but it's not a film I watch over and over again. Whereas 'Star Wars' I've watched over and over again all my life, and it's a film I can tolerate watching with my children.
Because we are four creative people - four writers - there was no way that we were ever going to be satiated doing the same thing over and again. Change was inevitable for us. And a very natural thing.
If I hope to survive, I have to acknowledge the natural selection that goes on when film stocks and cameras are eliminated from the world. And film viewers won't want to watch the same thing over and over again from me.
When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.
I would make a huge distinction between theater improvisation and film improvisation. There isn't much improvisation in film - there's virtually none. The people that theoretically could be good at this in a theater situation don't necessarily do this in a film in a way that will work, because it's much broader on a stage. But in a movie, it has to be real, and the characters have to look entirely real because it's being done as a faux documentary, so there are even fewer actors that can do that on film.
I don't think there's a ton of new new stuff about doing a sitcom or doing a multi-camera show, but they work. They're fun, and they're energetic, and they're short. And when you fall in love with one - like, I will watch Seinfeld, I'll watch Will & Grace, all those reruns. I just can never get enough. I watch the same ones over and over and over. I watch the same movies that make me laugh over and over and over. I was hoping to be part of something like that.
What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?
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