Quotes About Performance

As an actor, I am meant to dabble with different themes and genres.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

Baseball is a team sport played by individuals for themselves.

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Americans want grungy people, stabbing themselves in the head on stage. They get a bright bunch like us, with deodorant on, they don't get it.

Something I learned as an actor was which scenes needed to be rehearsed and which actors are good with rehearsal, which actors learn from it, and which ones grow stale because they start to second-guess themselves.

You do a clean show and it's over and the audience have enjoyed themselves and you've enjoyed yourself, and you haven't had to resort to shock.

People who think they're making a fool of themselves on the dance floor usually do.

Most salespeople would like to think of themselves as being rock stars, but they don't display the talent to match their definition.

I find often in Hollywood there are many people who play themselves really beautifully. And certain parts are not that dissimilar from who you are as a person.

It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.

I can only control my own performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day.

First be best, then be first.

You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good.

Over the years, I've realized that I have as much in common with the performance artist, the standup comedian, the screenwriter, as I do with the theologian. I'm in an odd world where I make things and share them with people.

There are no excuses for theoretical physicists not to perform and deliver.

Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.

You can't be theoretical when you're building a musical.

I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.

There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.

I've never been much for theory and scales.

My theory is that everything an actor does, from the way he looks at his watch to the way he moves across the stage, is in the service of advancing a story, and in that sense, it's all writing. In that sense we, while acting, write.

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.