Quotes About Performance

I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.

For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle, confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn't achieve the "zone," if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.

I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

Look at him he's just now getting ready and dressed and its 6 fucking minutes to the show! God fucking musicians.

If poetry is a circus, then the Big Tent we're under has to have room for a lot of different freak shows.

Very few managers know how to effectively tap the biggest source of performance improvement available to them: namely, the creativity and knowledge of the people who work for them.

Words came floating toward us, pieces of sentences. Big, deep words magnified by stadium speakers: "… two-minute warning! … halftime show!" Darius and I locked eyes. In the same moment, we both knew where we were. We were at the Super Bowl. The thing we were inside jerked. Rumbled. Started to move. And then I understood—we were inside a giant stage. One of those enormous platforms they wheel out during the Super Bowl halftime. And we were the halftime show.

The bigger your job, the more negative evaluations you must hand out. And the more criticism you must be willing to absorb.

You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't — You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking, "That was nice...now where's the cab?

an actor friend of mine calls the 'John Wayne status.' " "What's that?" The question brought a small smile to her face. "Wayne never performed until he finished his morning's business. Usually, he was regular. But every so often, he was stymied. Sometimes there would be hundreds of people on the set milling about for hours, waiting for one man to have a bowel movement.

One accusation you can't throw at me is that I've always done my best.

We played in Texas about a year ago, at Emo's, the famous country and western club in Austin. And I figured, well, if I'm finally gonna die onstage, that's where it's going to be!

Don't accept contingency fees or "pay for performance"; you're not a trained animal act. Variables are often outside your control, and besides, you're being paid for your best advice. It's up to the client to implement it effectively.

only measure that matters is

The only measure that matters is improved results—an improved client condition, in this case represented by objectives met and validated by key metrics.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

Yes, I was actually an acting teacher for a while.

It was the former ballet star Robert Helpmann who famously observed the problem with dancing naked: when you stop on the music, not all parts of your anatomy stop at the same time.

He had a contract, and he was confident in the capabilities of his vessel.

Diamond Dallas Page didn't have that larger-than-life persona, but he had a different connection with the audience.

I had a persona as a player, and I know this will come as a shock, but I liked to talk. But don't let the persona overshadow the person. The persona liked to have fun. The person knew when it was time to get to work.

An actor's off-screen persona should never overshadow his on-screen characters.

If you go on stage, or on TV, then there is an impetus that comes about to be a persona. A completely different character. But when you're someone like me, you don't want to have a persona. I want to be exactly who I am on stage.