A Quote by Michael Shurtleff

An expression of feeling isn't worth anything unless it interferes with what the other actor in the scene wants.

Michael Shurtleff

Quote Topics

Actor Anything Expression Expression Of Feeling Feeling Other Scene Unless Wants Worth

Quote Author

Michael Shurtleff
Actor
July 3, 1920 - January 28, 2007

It's no good in a scene to have one actor lie down because the scene says it's the other actor's moment. Each actor has to believe that with extra will, the outcome of a scene can be different. An actor can win the scene if he exerts the most powerful will in that moment.

Paul Greengrass

There's nothing wrong with getting a steady paycheck, unless it interferes with your ability to earn what you're worth. There's the rub. It usually does.

T. Harv Eker

When you are working hard, you don't have time for anything other than what you are doing in the scene and what the director wants.

Robert De Niro

I think actors are divided into two groups: one that wants to be an actor to become famous and rich, and the other that wants to be an actor because they have to be. I'm more in the second group.

Franka Potente

The only tool we have as artists is selectivity. If you're a painter, you select the color, the lines, how severe they should be. As an actor you develop how angry you should be. You select how angry you should be. You listen to the other actor and then you react. In film, sometimes the other actor isn't even there. You have to play the scene. What I do is I call on my experience on the stage. I play the scene and I hope that I reach a certain level of integrity because that's what I learned on the stage.

Jack Klugman

Sometimes a scene works and acting is the easiest thing in the world and you don't have to do much of anything - just enjoy yourself and listen to the other actor. When it doesn't work, then every actor has different ways of dealing with the impasse. Sometimes you use memories from the past. Whatever. It depends from job to job.

Viggo Mortensen

No reader wants to sit through the same scene four times in a row, unless they're radically different.

Celeste Ng

Every actor wants to get their two cents in about a scene at the end of the day.

Madonna Ciccone

For an actor, it's very important to get a clear idea of what a director wants, and their intention for what they want to get out of a scene and how they want to shoot it. Having that knowledge is really valuable, for an actor. It means you can deliver more.

Clive Owen

I think one of the things you have to be aware of as an actor is that if you come on the set and see the director standing there mouthing all the words while a scene is going on, that's usually a very bad sign because it means the director has already shot the scene in his head. He knows exactly the rhythm and the nuances that he wants delivered in the line and you're not going to dissuade him.

Dustin Hoffman

I think that people should give gifts by really recognizing the spiritual worth of the person and their (the givers') own worth. You usually give a present that the other person needs or wants, and I think it just emphasizes wants and needs.

Ram Dass

The acting background helped a lot when I started writing. I was training for it. In acting class they teach you about the stakes in a scene (and) what motivates characters. When you bring a scene to class - as an actor with your scene partner - you have to do everything. There's no producer, set decorator or anything like that. You and you partner have to do everything and that's kind of like facing the blank page as a writer.

Carol Higgins Clark

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?