Top 310 Backstage Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

The designers usually don't like to say until we're on the runway. Like when I did Prada last year, I couldn't mention doing Prada or even Tweet or take a picture and put it on Twitter saying I was backstage at the Prada show. And Dolce was the same thing. They like to keep a little surprise, I guess, a little secret for everybody.

Right after the keynote in which Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Shuffle, I went backstage with one question in mind: What makes an iPod an iPod? By then - January 11, 2005 - I had staked my own claim to iPod expertise, having written a 'Newsweek' cover story about Apple's transformational music player, and I was writing a book on it.

It's such an honor. I still get, I guess, starstruck, at the Opry. Because there's so much history here and there are so many legends that are still walking around backstage, so it's really an incredible, incredible experience for somebody like me that grew up listening to all of them. And to be able to share the stage with them is something that I treasure.

Mick Jagger visited us backstage and told us how much he liked our show. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts came back too, and they wanted to get their pictures taken with us. Bill Wyman knew our chart positions. I couldn't believe it.

I saw my dad doing it and thought to myself, 'I can do that.' I would be backstage watching him and running around the country with him singing to children. He would sing songs that taught children really good morals: like, 'Teaching Peace' was a song he used to sing to kids a lot.

I feel best in a ragged pair of red Honda Motorcycle pants. I have taken them to Machu Picchu, to the Knob Creek Machine Gun festival, and backstage to Cirque du Soleil - just the right touch to make you untouchable. No one quite dares to throw you out, because perhaps you are a world class motocross racer.

As I've gotten older, the parts have diminished. I liked it when I was younger, I could always play the lead in the movie and I could do all the romantic scenes with the women, and it was fun and I liked to play that. Now, I'm older and I'm reduced to playing the backstage doorman or the uncle or something. I don't really love that so occasionally, when a part comes up, I'll play it.

I'm always excited about my upcoming shows. I love what I do; I feel very lucky to be able to do what I do, and I never get tired of it. Every time I'm backstage before a show and I feel the murmur of the crowd, it's just incredibly exciting. And I consider myself very fortunate to be able to do this for a job. It's a great life.

In the rock 'n roll slang world, they're called rock doctors, or rock docs. They would come out to shows and like to hang backstage. You could get a prescription for anything you want from them. They just want to hang out and party. It's crazy because you can get a prescription to anything. It doesn't even matter what kind of doctor they are.

One time when I played Australia I had a death threat, and they tried to keep it from me, but I found out. They had all this security backstage, outside the dressing room. I said, "What happens when I walk into the spotlight. I'm a target. So I really don't need all this. You guys can go out and sit in the audience. I think you'd be a lot more useful there." If somebody really wants to do you in nothing will stop them. It's proven by John F.Kennedy, the Pope and Ronald Reagan.

The movie that really 'did it for me' was 'All About Eve.' The backstage feeling, the authenticity, the passion those people had for their lives in the theater. I must say, the movie 'All About Eve,' what a great movie! 'All About Eve' had a profound effect on my life.

I always had to fight. I still do, believe it or not. When I had to go backstage. Even in Paris, I remember Billie Blair - a great model at the time - had to sneak me in by telling people I was her hairdresser. But her hair was so short, practically shaved. I said, "Couldn't you say I was your makeup artist?"

You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

Just that, is one of those uncommon moments, those times when you don't wish for something else, for even one thing to be different; when you have no other needs or worries, where your insides are calm, and everything you were ever restless about, anything that had ever given you angst, is quieted to stillness. No steel ball in your chest, no breathless fear. No blue numbness of nearly passing out, no nagging doubts of the backstage mind. All of that, forgotten. It is just rightness, so rare.

They [Barnes Theatre Club] were a very good group, and for some reason when I finished the backstage thing, I just decided to that I should try to act. So I auditioned for Guys and Dolls and got a little tiny part as some Cuban dancer or something and then in the next play I got the lead part, and then I got my agent. So I owe everything to that little club.

When I first started modeling, I had the chance to walk the runway with Naomi passing by me, but I didn't know anything about supermodels. But when I saw her backstage, she complimented me on my walk, and I thought she was so nice - everyone was freaking out that I didn't know who she was.

When I was backstage at Comic-Con, about to go out and do the panel for Thor, and Joss Whedon ran up and introduced himself, I already almost passed out, right then. And then, he said, "I've been meaning to call you. You have a big part in The Avengers. Can we introduce you as part of the cast?" It was pretty Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was pretty sure I was dying and nobody had told me yet.

I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddy [sic] Mercury who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy.

Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.

The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you "know" about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.

I think when you're drinking you don't have the clarity to think about things. It's not easy to talk about obviously but I think quitting drinking was one of the most important decisions I've ever made for myself. It's not easy, especially when I'm touring and everyone is partying and I'm backstage playing Scrabble or drawing in my notebook because I'm a total nerd now.

The role I played [in theatre] was originated by Ian McKellen in 1979 and he came. I didn't know he was there and I walked out at the end of the play, which is a very intense play - my character is required to do some really horrible things - and the director was waiting backstage and he goes, "Obviously I didn't want to tell you guys, but Ian was here today" and we, of course, freaked out.Ian McKellen said some really beautiful, kind things, one of which was, "It's so much harder to watch than it is to do."

When you left this one theater in Norfolk, the actors had to walk through the lobby to get out to the street. People would see you and say nice things, tell you that you were good. So, pretty soon I'm pretending to forget things backstage, going through the lobby a couple of times.

The high point of my entire junior high school career was going backstage after the first concert to meet the Beatles in person. I had a huge crush on George Harrison at the time, having inherited my family's passion for skinny musicians, and I was simply awestruck to be meeting the Fab Four in person.

For the last one hundred and fifty years, the history of the House of Rothschild has been to an amazing degree the backstage history of Western Europe...Because of their success in making loans not to individuals but to nations, they reaped huge profits...Someone once said that the wealth of Rothschild consists of the bankruptcy of nations.

The earliest memories I have from my childhood are of my mum getting ready to go on stage. I must have been about five and I would watch her vomiting backstage on opening night, and then the next minute she became Isabella, the Queen of Spain. At the time I remember thinking, 'What kind of schizophrenic job is this?' Now it all makes sense.

The challenge for me, and for Asian models in general has been convincing editors, stylists and photographers that we can have mass appeal, but Asian, especially Chinese models have become a stronger presence. Just a season or two ago, there weren't many models for me to talk with backstage in my native Mandarin. Now I usually have no trouble finding someone at any show.

I always say the best applause you can get is when you walk from backstage up to your microphone at a concert. It's also nice to walk up to the mike at an awards show, and that applause is great, too, but the best is when your fans are cheering for you.

I was doing one of my first plays at the Royal Court, and Matt LeBlanc came to see the play. He came backstage afterwards, and I couldn't speak. I kept trying to, but no words came out. I just kept thinking, 'That's Joey from 'Friends.' That's actual Joey from 'Friends!'' It was so embarrassing!

I did interviews with most of the TechCrunch50 experts backstage and there was a common gripe about the companies launching there: Not enough passion, not enough swinging for the fences, not enough trying to change the world... One big exception was CitySourced - a company that excited Kevin Rose precisely because it was trying to build something that doesn't really exist today and would make a huge difference in people's lives. It was the most excited I saw an expert about anything over the two-day event.

Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula'... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage.

I've gotten to go to the Opry a couple of times and stand backstage and watch. But I made it a point not to take a tour or stand in the circle until music took me there. I told myself that was one place I'd never go unless music took me there.

I met Porter Robinson in, like, 2016 at Shaky Beats after one of his sets. Me and my friends ran backstage really quickly to try and get him as he was going to his trailer. We said 'Hi' really quick, and it was the best 30 seconds of my life; it was amazing. Getting to meet artists like that that have changed my life is super, super cool.

I was a gay kid in high school in the late '90s, and I was in theater club. I was never a thespian. I was much more of a lighting guy or a backstage guy. Because I wanted to do something easy for the rest of my life, I thought, "Maybe I'll go and apply to colleges that specialize in theater set design. I'll do that. That's what I want to do". With theater, really, I'd be around the gays.

It’s such a floating freak show. You get a bit older and you start to see what’s going on backstage in the collective psyche of this ridiculous industry. … Nothing pleases me more than when somebody who was awe-inspired to be working with me realizes I’m just another schmuck that they’re bored of hanging out with on a set. I love that moment. I like it when that persistent illusion is smashed.

The really funny thing is that my mom and my dad never, ever, ever wanted me to be in this businessbut it just kind of happened. I blame it all on my mom who was still dancing on stage with me when she was however many months pregnant. I always say that I was dancing and acting in the belly. I feel like it’s something I was born with and inspired by my family since I grew up backstage, watching them perform. I guess it was just a natural path for me.

I would urge a young player to listen to Charlie Christians' sense of time ... I'll never forget listening to my father (Bucky Pizzarelli) and Tal Farlow playing Christians' 'Solo Flight' backstage at a gig... that's when it hit me how big of an effect Christian had on jazz guitar. 'Solo Flight' was like the gospel.

Let me tell you something, last night in the debate, during one of the breaks, two of the breaks, Donald Trump went backstage... He asked for a full length mirror. I don't know why because the podium goes up to here. He wanted a full length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants weren't wet. I don't know.

I live on a boat two months out of the year, and if I did not have that then I don't know how I'd be able to handle all this.... I am a very intense person on stage. I have to remember why I am there, what I am doing. You can spend all day backstage preparing for the show and lose sight of why you are doing this. Off stage, I am a very simple kind of guy. I live my life in flip-flops.

I ushered at the Shubert in New Haven during graduate school when plays en route to Broadway still went out of town to try out. I worked backstage at summer stock doing jobs from garbage man to strapping on Herbert Marshall's wooden leg to fixing Gloria Swanson's broken plumbing in her dressing room with her yelling at me as I worked the plunger.

Once you've been backstage at a theater, the theater is never the same for you. Once you've noticed the crack in the vase, the vase is never the same for. Once you've seen a friend do something appalling, the friendship is never the same. That does not mean you won't go to the theater, or keep the vase or the friend. You can choose.

Once we played at the Fillmore opposite The Cream. Eric Clapton was there and he played his ass off that night ... backstage Michael Bloomfield introduced me to Eric, and Eric was so nice. He came up to me, put his arms around me and said "Barry, it's such a pleasure to meet you" ... I couldn't figure it out... then Michael told me that he had told Eric I had cancer and two months to live...

At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere, backstage, you will meet an older actor, someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes, about life in the theatre. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man!'

Every show is a mess at its first preview. No one's had enough time to rehearse in costumes, traffic patterns backstage haven't been worked out, machinery weighing thousands of pounds is being operated for the first time. And, also, it's the first time all the material you've written is before the public.

I was once doing a gig with Tim Vine; he was backstage, and there was one of those long strings of polystyrene coffee cups. He picked up the whole stack of about 20, walked on stage and then said: 'Bloody hell this coffee's hot!' which I think is the funniest thing anyone has ever said.

I just work a lot. I just remember recording in a hotel room in Malaysia. I work on planes, I work on buses. A lot of times when I'm backstage in the hotel or on the bus, I would have new ideas.

I think about Laura Bush every once in awhile. She is a great supporter of the arts. I did a show at the Eisenhower Theater, and she would make a point of coming backstage. The relationship between Laura and George Bush was always that way where you felt like he was at his best behavior when he was in her company.

A couple of years ago, I went to see a production of Wicked in San Francisco with a friend of mine, one that Patty Duke was in, and he said, "Do you want to meet her?" And I said, "Yeah!" And I went backstage, and she walked out of her dressing room, looked at me, and said, "I know you." And I went, "Well, uh, yeah, I was in My Sweet Charlie." And she said, "Yeah! You were the guy in the car on the road!" And I was. It was amazing.

I was amazed to go Oscar and win it. It was fantastic getting up on the stage there and looking down. I thought, "That guy looks like Steve Martin, and that guy's like Arnold Schwarzenegger." But it was Steve Martin, and it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then they have this terrible kind of conveyor belt backstage - literally - where they take you to this big hangar where the world's press are gathered, and they make you stand on a stage, and they introduce you.

We were playing a small club in San Diego and the power had gone out in the building. Eddie had a lighter and kept us lit backstage. We became very good friends and spent a lot of time together including hearing Eddie sing in some of the bands he was in at the time.

I used to get defensive and react. Like you, I get pushed and pulled [backstage].... Sometimes people are rude to me, and I feel like, 'You know, guys, I'm just here trying to do my job....' And the reality is, everyone else is just trying to do their job...and sometimes they get on a power trip [and] you feel disrespected. But that's their problem. It's not my problem.

Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.

My parents are actors as well, so I grew up around that world. It was always a very romantic, mythical world. They did a lot of theater, so to me an actor was getting to come backstage and dressing room mirrors with bulbs around them and trying on people's costumes. It was very exciting to me as a child.

I remember working with Agyness Deyn. At the time, she was the only one who had short hair as a model. I remember being so envious of her because we would all be getting our hair pulled for two hours backstage, and she was getting a new haircut almost every other show.

I have a good friend, Rudolf Serkin, the pianist, a very sensitive man. I was talking to him one day backstage after a concert and I told him that I thought he had played particularly sensitively that day. I said, "You know, many pianists are brilliant, they strike the keys so well, but somehow you are different." "Ah," he said, "I don't think you should ever strike a key. You should pull the keys with your fingers."

I'm really clumsy, so I trip and fall a lot. And every time I perform in New York my pants split onstage. That's happened four or five times. Every time, I pull on my mom's jeans as fast as I can, so there we are, standing backstage without our pants on. It's like a curse.

I think people probably lie about not reading their own reviews. I don't think that's true - I've been to a lot of music festivals and hung out backstage, especially in the past couple of years, and I see all these bands reading about themselves in newspapers. So I don't think that's true.

Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.

As a kid, I would do all of the plays at my school, and I was notorious for being in five numbers in one show. I'd go onstage, run backstage for a wardrobe change, and then go back out onstage. I'm always trying to do more than I should but when I got my lucky break (or whatever it's called), I was prepared because I studied and worked really hard for it.

I hadn't been onstage in a while. The last time was pre-children. And before I went on [at Roseland], my kids were backstage, and I thought, This isn't how I usually do it. I've got kids, and I'm thinking, This is weird. It's weird juggling children on your knee while you're in your rhinestone outfit. And I'm thinking, Okay, I'm gonna go out and do a show and I'm gonna be Superwoman! But I'm not really, `cause I'm a mom. It's all very strange.