Quotes About Performance

There's something really nice about writing something on Wednesday and watching it being performed live for a studio audience on Tuesday. You never really get that with novels.

With 'Dance Moms' in L.A., we film on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When we film in Pittsburgh, we film the same days, but we still dance in our studio when we're not filming, so I'm dancing every day except Sunday.

Christopher Walken could literally read a phone book and fill a theater, and it would be interesting to watch. I've often wanted to produce a show and ask him if he'd do that. All week long, he could read the As on Tuesday, the Bs on Wednesday; we'd see how long it would last.

I love long runs. I never feel ready to go till about the second Wednesday matinee.

If you get too high it comes back to bite you on the backside so I was always aware in spells before when I've done well in a season, eventually there was a wee dip.

I've only been blessed with one talent, unfortunately, and that's being able to sing a wee bit.

You will always worry - a wee lad from Edinburgh going up on stage in Glasgow.

Companies need to weed out drivers who dont drive well or have got poor ratings from the customers.

I feel that a lot of roles in television can really typecast someone as one type of actor or playing one type of role, but I really don't think that my role in 'Weeds' did at all.

Consistency of performance is essential. You don't have to be exceptional every week but as a minimum you need to be at a level that even on a bad day you get points on the board.

Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn't-fair results, it turns out that the happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work more hours each week - and they work more in their free time, too.

In the beginning I used to make one terrible play a game. Then I got so I'd make one a week and finally I'd pull a bad one about once a month. Now, I'm trying to keep it down to one a season.

I'm not a great flyer. It's ironic, since I'm in showbiz and have to fly at least twice a week. I try to sleep and blot it out.

For me, it's always been about preparation, and the more prepared I can be each week, the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it's only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.

I have ballet class every other day for two hours. And for 'Six Feet Under', last week there was a sequence where I had to do a whole choreographed dance number, so I had four hours of dance practice every day.

I've been doing a lot of work with my brilliant trainer Pat Manocchia, who has a gym called La Palestra. He's trained me for every big show I've done, every demanding 8-show week role that requires stamina, like 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'Gypsy.'

My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing.

I was really into dancing, taking six classes a week, and my real dream was to be in a Broadway show.

I have a voice coach, but only in so much as to make my voice stronger so I can sing for five nights a week, two hours.

Great acting may be a turn-on, but it won't make me fantasize about the person for a week.

One week you may be an actor, and the next week you had to be nimble enough to be a TV host. And the week after that, you might have to do some stand-up or be in an improv company or write and sing a song somewhere.

I think when you compete every week, when you play under pressure daily, you find your rituals to be 100 percent focused on what you're doing.

It is kind of tedious after a while, to parse politicians doing the same thing over and over again. The facts change from week to week, but the sort of masquerade doesn't.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I'm doing new stuff all the time.