Quotes About Preparation

For my whole career, I concentrated on that cycle of games from August to May and being mentally and physically ready.

I think, from just playing street ball and stuff like that, I was always able to play up with the older guys, and I think that got me physically and mentally prepared to play on a high level of basketball.

No, I never sing in the bath. In fact, I've never even practised singing. I would only ever sing indoors if I had to learn a song with my pianist.

One day I will go back to my books and piano, but not yet.

I do a long sound check. I get there at noon on the day of a show and sit behind the piano and then walk around with the microphone. Then I feel like I have done my homework.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

It's always been my formula to get the next picture set up before anyone's seen the last one.

I always want to read the script and know everything and at least understand the context of the world that you're in and why you're there and all that stuff. It's good to know something. I like to know, but I've never been one of these, 'Just show me my stuff,' no, I like to know what the whole picture is so I can understand how I fit into it.

I think all the stuff that happens before the pictures are taken is much more exciting.

'The Indian Runner' was easy. It had been incubating in me for eight years, and by the time I sat down to write the thing, I had all the pictures in my head.

A pie dough comes together exactly like a biscuit only there is very, very little liquid and no leavening involved. Other than that, the same rules apply. My best advice: handle the dough as little as possible.

I want to do nothing chic, I want to have ideas before beginning a piece.

When a piece is done, I mix it before going on to any other piece.

First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.

I have to admit, in January and February I was in an absolute fuzz. I had no one on board. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing, but we didn't have all the pieces put together.

I think we could jam a bit more in our coffins than we do. I'm going to have some books, some I haven't finished or haven't read, some feathers and nice bits and pieces, the odd note. Just on the journey for the next bit.

On game day, if I eat fruit - I usually eat fruit in the mornings - I have to have three pieces of cantaloupe, three pieces of pineapple. Everything's in threes.

You have to take the time to live in a place to collect all the pieces, develop a vision. You can't just go to Home Depot and buy everything.

Before a long-haul flight, buy yourself a cheap, big, comfortable pillow. It makes a huge difference.

Anybody can pilot a ship when the sea is calm.

For 'Orphan Black,' all I got was the pilot script, and that was enough for me. I was daydreaming about this part. I kept thinking about how certain scenes were going to play out and how these interactions were going to take place.

One thing every Army pilot knows is that there is no such thing as a routine mission.

I'll have a few pints the night before a match.

When you're asked to fly a 747 you better at least be able to fly a Piper cub.