Quotes About Improvisation

Everyone forgets comedians are actors. There's no question about it. A Robin Williams cannot say the same line every night for 40 weeks and make it sound fresh unless he's doing an acting job.

That's something Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you're not feeling right about what you're doing and you play a minor tune it all comes back, falls into place. I don't know if that's true, but I do it.

To those portions of the electorate fed up with politics as usual, Mr. Trump's willingness to say just about anything and to improvise as he goes seems more refreshing and trustworthy than disqualifying.

Teddy Wilson, I think, said a little while ago that it's much easier to come in and play whatever comes into your mind, without obeying any of the laws of bass line and harmony and so on.

Acting is like a sporting match; a tennis game, but no one should win or lose. The game's the thing!

I've been playing with Blackwell over 20 years. We used to play when I first went to Los Angeles. Blackwell plays the drums as if he's playing a wind instrument. Actually, he sounds more like a talking drum.

I'm not good at making plans, because I never have been. I never do things with an idea of where they may wind up.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.

When you get out of school, you just go where the wind blows: Here's an audition; there's an audition. And before you know it, you're where you're supposed to be. And that was Second City.

Sometimes there are really severe conditions like super, super wind or crazy wind or something like that that you don't really get to practice for. But it's kind of you just show up and whatever you get in warm-ups, you kind of adjust to it and play as you go.

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.

You can't rely on luck. I've had some stages in my career where I've said we're going to wing it, and we've always ended up in trouble.

So I figured in keeping with the record, I'd do something off the wall which is show up for free and wing it... I don't know, I'm just going to play some songs. I think it'll be fun.

If I do a bit on stage, I prepare too much. Those bits are all really, really carefully written, and overwritten, and researched. I really don't feel like I can wing it. So I write it out word for word, and when I'm onstage I'll improvise around it.

It was a shock to my system leaving 'The West Wing' and going to 'Psych.' I remember being like, 'What are you doing?' when James Roday first started improvising. Steve and the writing staff write it that way. They leave gaps.

Nick can get up on stage and just wing it, whereas I would have to be taken to a mental institution.

I don't really have a process. I'm very much an in-the-moment actress. I suppose I just kind of wing it because I feel that as long as I know my character, I should be able to be spontaneous on set.

You'll get, like, 10 pages of sides the night before, and you have to go in and just wing it. For someone like me, I came from the theater, and I don't like putting anything up in front of anybody until it's really, really ready, so it can be very frustrating.

I wing my style. I think it's definitely something on how you feel, the weather, that plays a part.

I always keep my script in the wings - a hangover from my rep days when we had no prompter and, if all else failed, I would make an excuse and rush off the stage to have a quick look.

Honestly, I'm a shallow performer. I just go with the text and feel my way around it. There's not a whole lot of shaping.

It was spontaneously composed as I was playing it. And then I added a couple of other overdub textures on top of it after the fact. But it's one of those things where I wouldn't be able to sit down and specifically write that. That's just what came out.

I'm really thankful for my improv background.