Quotes About Performance

It's something I have to remind myself about, that at every competition, I put a lot of pressure on myself, almost like it's the end of the world, and I have to keep reminding myself it's not.

Doing 'Mamma Mia' was scary full stop, so playing a young Colin Firth was even more intimidating. I just had to keep reminding myself that I was playing Harry and not Colin Firth, which psychologically felt better.

I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It's kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It's a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.

I rely on poetry or literature to keep me centered before I go onstage because it reminds me to be present.

When I tend to belt, it kind of reminds me of like a more '60s girl doo-wop kind of belting.

Theatre reminds me of Bollywood.

Some comedians make a marvellous living doing material that is completely predictable, that reminds people of things that they already know or jokes that they are already familiar with.

An award, to me, means a bonus. It's not that an actor works for an award. I don't work for an award. But, when you get an award, it is encouraging and inspiring and reminds you that you need to do well.

It's a performer's worst nightmare: to hurt yourself on stage and not be able to remove yourself from the stage.

Fencing is a funny sport. Competitive fencing is not really very applicable to the stage world unless you're fighting with a rapier during the Renaissance, you know?

As the render is to the building, and the blueprint to the machine, so sport is to social existence.

We use the immense possibilities of technology to make the rendering better; anyone can be a singer now!

A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It's a theatrica! event.

Unless you're Barack Obama, you cannot pull off an impromptu a capella rendition of a heart-warming song in the middle of a speech.

When you need to renew your contract, you must demonstrate why they are renewing your contract.

I perform in opera houses in the centres of big cities. We live in 20 acres of forest. You need that space to recover and renew.

If I see a great performance on television, onstage, in the movies, I go to work the next day with a renewed energy and less fear. These great artists take me out of my life and make me want to go there.

I don't think I ever wore pants on 'Reno 911!' and I was on it about five times.

'The State' had never done improv. We used to go over scripts for weeks and argue about every joke. But I don't know how we would have scripted 'Reno.'

You rarely pay the rent by doing Shakespeare or Ibsen.

For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer.

I'm an actor, after all, and I need to be able to pay my rent.

'Rent' opened up my heart, my senses. I was never the same. I hadn't been back in that place in the same way since. 'Hamilton' put me back in that place.

When I started 'Rent,' I already had an idea of how I was going to portray Angel, simply because of who I was at that moment. Everyone always perceived her as a drag queen, but the reality of the matter is that I truly believe she was a trans woman.