Quotes from Declan Donnellan

Acting is a reflex, a mechanism for development and survival. . . . It isn't 'second nature,' it is 'first nature.'

There is no stricter moralist than Fear; and no moralist is a stranger to Fear.

For we direct, perform and witness performances every night – theatre cannot die before the last dream has been dreamt.

The actor cannot act a verb without an object.

If the Devil jumped in front and faced us, he would vanish. He rules by pretending that, like the Gorgon, the mere glimpse of him would paralyse us. But no, to see him fully would be to destroy him fully. Similarly, we can never get rid of Fear. But we can keep booting him behind us.

We don't want to depend on things that might let us down.

So far as I know, no one has ever died because they gave a poor performance. The terror that appears so frighteningly real diminishes under closer scrutiny. Of course it is sad to do poor work. But then, we inevitably do a lot of bad work and we all have to deal with that.

What we say is never about what we say; what we say is about who we are talking to. What we say is a tool to change our hearers.

In reality we are present, we can do absolutely nothing to alter that. But we can fantasise that we are somewhere else. In fact we have evolved such ingenious devices to delude ourselves that we are absent that it is extremely difficult to switch them off.

Fear's ploy is to stop us looking at him, or indeed anything else, closely and attentively. When panic strikes it helps to remember that the simple act of paying attention is calming. In fact only attentiveness brings peace.

When all around seems dead, it is a delusion. Fear has doped us till we no longer see the target changing and moving.

A theatre is not only a literal place, but also a space where we dream together; not merely a building, but a space that is both imaginative and collective. pg. 1

theatre cannot die before the last dream has been dreamt. pg 1.

Acting is a reflex, a mechanism for development and survival. pg. 2

But those things that apparently cut out life, or seem to conceal or block it, are not nearly so mysterious as they pretend. These 'things' are bound by logic and may be analysed, isolated and destroyed. pg. 3

Freedom is everything, but independence is nothing.

Reality, it is true, has a lot to answer for, so on the whole we make sure we don't live there. We cannot control reality, but we can control our fantasies. Except our fantasies don't exist; so we're not really controlling anything at all. But the illusion of control is deeply reassuring. And the price we pay for this reassurance is unimaginable.

Love happens when we pay attention