Quotes About Interpretation

The only suggestions I get on my plays is to make them more of what they already are, and that's wonderful.

My job is really to... everyone is reading the script, and my job is to make sure we all interpret it in as much the same way as possible. And then I give them the freedom to sort of - to get their performance across and then make suggestions where things are not working and accentuate and push things where they really are working.

If the way I've performed a scene isn't to the director's liking, I discuss it, try to understand why he doesn't like it, and incorporate the suggestions. But sometimes I also take a very strong stand.

You never know about the art world because it's a matter of opinion. If you look at old art like Rembrandt and Vermeer, it's not completely a matter of opinion. The pictures confront you, and you see exactly what it is. In modern art, a lot of it is suggestive, and it becomes a matter of opinion.

We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices.

The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this - a movie star will say, 'How can I change the script to suit me?' and a movie actor will say. 'How can I change me to suit the script?'

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't.

I'm not just somebody shuffling around in a monster suit. I'm a kind of puppeteer from the inside who is attempting through arm and body movements to give the creatures I play a sense of personality.

I can think of only two or three songs out of hundreds I've recorded that I performed as originally written. I like to become intimate with the material and change it to suit me.

When you're playing a character in a movie, you can add your own touch to it and modify it to suit your style.

There's been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from Joe Satriani, but, if you listen to it, it's mine! It's the 'Foreigner Suite,' it is!

There is a large stock on hand; but somehow or other, nobody's experience ever suits us but our own.

You have to interpret what's hot to make it work on yourself. If tweed suits are in, but you're not a suit kind of girl, wear the jacket with jeans and a pair of Converses.

Art is a subjective thing, and it should be a subjective thing. And the difficulty of subjectivity is that it becomes hugely problematized when you start applying large sums of money to art objects. That's where it all starts to get a bit sticky.

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.

I was doing an interview with a curator, and he asked me to sum up art in one word. Before he even finished asking the question, I said, 'Impurity.' Because that's it.

I talk to a lot of people who, when you try to sum them up in a couple of sentences, seem like they must be insane.

Even if you're playing the most well-known repertoire under the sun, I still believe you have a responsibility as an artist to tell the audience why you're playing it, what are the key aspects to it, and then throw in a bit about its historical context.

I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.

Everything about Sinatra was good. He had the ability to pick great songs, and once Sinatra had sung them, that pretty much was it. He pretty much put his stamp on everything.

I've had a wordless phase, and that's still not entirely over: what I sing is not always literally meant that way, and you can hear that in the way it is sung.

Every song asks to be sung in a different way.

Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character.

I hear my songs being sung by females before I change them and make them into my voice.