Quotes About Theater

I loved 'Les Miz' and 'Into the Woods' - I used to cast 'Into the Woods' with my friends, even if they'd never stepped on stage before.

Chaplin was my idol. I remember watching those movies at this little theater in Woodstock, N.Y., when I was probably 6 and laughing so hard at the surprises, like Keaton suddenly being dragged by a streetcar.

I'm ready to do a Woody Allen comedy.

I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody.

At early previews, the theater gossips are there, wishing you ill every night. They don't grant you any slack. Agents are in from Hollywood. Your friends are there. People who are going to spread the word-of-mouth. If something doesn't work, everyone will know.

Usually in theater, the visual repeats the verbal. The visual dwindles into decoration. But I think with my eyes. For me, the visual is not an afterthought, not an illustration of the text. If it says the same thing as the words, why look? The visual must be so compelling that a deaf man would sit though the performance fascinated.

When you do television, you're filming out of sequence sometimes. You have to ground yourself very quickly in the character and in the work and in the words. I think theater allowed me that sort of sharp, quick focus to do that.

The play is not in the words, it's in you!

I'd never done a straight play before, never, and it was very hard work - really, really hard work. It was dense, really wordy, and I was determined to learn every word of it - not just skip over bits and pieces.

I was so grateful to work on 'Bunheads.' We had so much material, and everything was so rapid-fire, and I developed - through theater too, I developed a really great work ethic. I think preparing for both of them is just that - you come to set ready to go, ready to play. You know your lines. You're ready to work.

I did work hard at auditions, and three years at RADA isn't like a walk in the park. And then it takes a lot of sacrifices, giving certain things up in order to audition, in order to do a play, whatever it may be.

I auditioned for the part of Cosette in 'Les Miserables' on Broadway. It didn't work out.

I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.

In theater, you really work out the kinks and figure out exactly what you want to do and what we want to say, so by the time we have an audience, we're really prepared. With TV, you have a day... Sometimes, just a few hours.

It is possible to work out of New York on film and television and still not lose your connection to theater.

The history of screenwriting - of what we do - is more than 100 years old. It's thousands of years old, going back to Sophocles and Euripedes. I believe the only - the only - separation for being a dramatist is reading drama.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

I did so many acting jobs for nothing. I was in a play that opened on Christmas Eve above a police precinct on 54th Street. Three people showed up. One of them was an agent. It was my first agent.

In my theater work, I've had much more three-dimensional, broader-stroke characters.

I would love to be on Broadway. I would love to do a three-month run, similar to how celebrities do a three-month run on 'Chicago.' Something like that would be awesome. So, I'm putting it out there.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I am a theater girl, and a lot of theater girls dress however pleases them. I wear whatever looks good on me. I wear what I wear because I have been shopping at thrift stores since I was five.

In terms of theater, there's not a more supportive theater community than in New York. It's really kind of a real thrill to go there. I mean, don't forget, I'm a boy from the suburbs of Sydney, so getting to New York is a huge, huge thrill.

Hopefully, everyone has the same feeling I do when they perform. I get such a thrill from getting to play make believe. My favorite place to be is trying to be somebody else.