Quotes About Theater

I was obsessed with movies when I was younger. During the summer, I would go by myself to a theater down the street from my house. I saw every comedy or science fiction movie that came out. My kids love going to the movies, but 3D scares them.

One summer, my friend and I went to summer camp, and I acted in some plays there, and I fell in love with it.

So I majored in Drama, did all the plays that were possible to do, skated through school in order to be in every production on stage or backstage in whatever capacity and I came to New York looking for work in the summers.

I remember, when I was doing 'Nicholas Nickleby', James Archer came to see me at the interval and said, 'My father would like to see you after the show.' It felt rather as if I had been summoned by the Queen, and I was cocky enough to think, 'Who the hell is he to summon me?'

I realized with Broadway everything written for black people is usually written in the past, and I'm kind of a contemporary guy. I don't think you want to see me in 'Raisin in the Sun'.

The first important role was a Broadway lead I did called 'The Royal Hunt Of The Sun' by Peter Shaffer, the guy who did 'Equus' and 'Amadeus.' Many of the important roles that I got later on were because the guy who was going to hire me was in that audience and had his mind blown. I tend to do that. I blow people's minds with my performances.

When I was doing 'A Raisin in the Sun' with Sean Combs, we began in bed, and he would give me 10 kisses and an 11th for luck before the play began.

It's a bit of a history lesson, being an actor. I was in 'Burnt By The Sun' at the National, which was set in Stalinist Russia, so I discovered all about that. You learn so much as you go along.

I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.

I can't wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They're a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.

I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the 'U.K. Sunday Times,' who championed me as Shakespeare's Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival.

I go to an acting class every Sunday.

I would love to play Dot in 'Sunday in the Park with George.' It's one of my dream roles - to play Dot.

I remember my first role as a sunflower at nine.

The nice thing about doing a pop opera - in the way that doing, say, 'Miss Saigon' or 'Les Miz' would be - is that, because the convention is set from the beginning that this is an opera and everything is sung, there is never that feeling of 'Why is this person bursting out into song?' because the whole thing is sung.

I've sung a whole lot of jazz. It's my favorite style of music to sing. People don't realize it, because they're so accustomed to hearing me sing musical theater.

I was in the original cast of 'Sunset Boulevard.' I played Betty. But I wasn't on the cast album.

In a film, I can show you the beach, the sunset, the roads, while in a play you have to imagine all that.

Broadway's a lot of work, don't get me wrong. It's eight shows a week. You hardly ever see the sunset. I remember when I left, I was like, 'Oh! The sun's setting! I haven't seen that in a year!' Singing eight shows a week is hard.

If I get back into theater, I think I'd want to do a play. I enjoy singing, but it beats me up a bit. I get super paranoid and self-conscious about my voice.

I was never like, 'Oh, I really want to play Cinderella.' That's not necessarily always been the dream. But it's super fun to play a princess.

I was a dancer from about the age of four, so I was always performing and forcing my parents to watch my brother and I do 'Jesus Christ Super Star' in the living room. My first step was community theater, and then I started to do films.

I was definitely Theater-Band Geek/Straight-Up Boss Subgroup C. I was really into band and theater and super into music at the time. I loved performing arts, and that would definitely be my group.

I wasn't beautiful, so there were plenty of character roles. I never did any Shakespeare, I'm far too superficial for that. I just act instinctively.