Quotes About Improvisation

As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.

I love when things can repeat and you can make things slightly different each time and just react to the music and react to the recording.

For instance, if you're playing a record with drums - horns would sound nice to enhance it so you get a record with horns and slip it in at certain times.

Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, and then I have to go back to page 42 and fix things. I'm not recommending it as a way to write. It's very sloppy, but it works for me.

We didn't have a script, but with Jean-Luc we didn't really need one. It was like an understanding between us. He would say, 'Anna, a little bit quicker or a little bit slower.' That was all. We didn't do a lot of retakes. With some other actors I know he would do a lot of retakes, but not with me.

I've always done theater. I've never thought of myself as a comedic actress in any way. 'Anchorman' kind of cracked that open. When I got a small part in 'Anchorman,' I didn't know it was possible on camera to improvise. So I was like, 'What's happening?'

I did a smaller gig with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. In one song, something wrong happened with the drum machine. I tried to cover up the mistake by playing faster and improvising a new song but it became crazy, and I had to admit it was all a mess.

I have never been to an acting school, and on the sets of 'Karwaan,' Irrfan was my acting school. By observing him, I learnt to improvise in the scenes along with focusing on the smallest of the details.

One of the smartest things you can do on 'Chopped' is to take one of those ingredients and make a pickle out of it, because almost every dish benefits from that. I'm feeling like those intuitions are becoming more natural.

My dad had a guitar but it was acoustic, so I smashed a mirror and glued broken glass to it to make it look more metal. It looked ridiculous!

I've had some shows where I really plan out what I'm going to say. Then I've had other shows where I'm like, 'Take a sip of the Ole Smoky Moonshine and just let it be natural and cross your fingers that you say the right things.'

When I was in the marching band, I used to take my snare drum and turn it over and use my drumstick and scratch on the other side. That was just being creative.

When I write on 'SNL,' I've found I'm most productive while collaborating and joking with friends and not being firmly attached to any one idea.

I'm really impressed every time Kanye comes to perform at 'SNL' because he finds a new way to make that space work for him.

I'm crazy lucky. I was trying to be a filmmaker. I was doing Second City classes as a way to be creative. I was a PA for a long time. I was working as an assistant editor on 'Iron Chef America' when I got 'SNL.' It was one of those situations where you're concentrating in one thing and the peripheral thing popped.

I'm not totally sure what I want to be doing, but it's so fun to be on 'SNL' because you get exposed to so many different people and so many different experiences. It's a cool, lucky way to break into the business.

I love improvisation. I mean, it's hard to edit, because things don't necessarily fall together - you have to find ways to give it a dramatic scope, shape. But it's so much fun.

The best way to be effortlessly spontaneous is to rehearse to the point of mastery.

We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?

El hombre lo vive todo a la primera y sin preparación. Como si un actor representase su obra sin ningún tipo de ensayo. Pero ¿qué valor puede tener la vida si el primer ensayo para vivir es ya la vida misma? Por eso la vida parece un boceto. Pero ni siquiera boceto es la palabra precisa, porque un boceto es siempre un borrador de algo, la preparación para un cuadro, mientras que el boceto que es nuestra vida es un boceto para nada, un borrador sin cuadro.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note – it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

I love improvisation.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

I love showing up and giving a performance without the benefit of a lot of rehearsal or dissection. It's fun to me to act on a kind of instinctual level and go straight for the performance.