What is a good performance? It lies in the hands and head of a performer… the shortest way between two people is not a straight line.
I just wanted to be a performer. I was ambitious. I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t act. I could dance a little. So what was there left for me to do? Television presenter. That was it.
The idea that any performer type is owed anything is a joke to me.
I’m a total performer.
Growing up, all I did was work and vacation, but I loved it, no one pushed me into anything. The thing was I developed no special skills. I don’t have any resentment because I am a performer and I’ve always felt that, but it did take its toll socially.
For me, there’s a fine line between being a cheeseball and being a good performer.
I first came across Langhorne Slim when I saw him play live, and he’s an incredibly infectious performer. The way he works the crowd is mind-blowing. You can listen to his music without really listening to his lyrics, but it pays off if you do.
I think there’s something for anyone who wants to be a performer in Seattle.
A little bit of neurosis is OK as a performer, but untethered, it can tear one apart.
As a performer, we look for applause.
We are always full of the types of people who retire or die. But they are never saying ‘This guy is really unbelievable; we’re alive to witness an exceptional performer.’ I think we should recognise that while we are still racing.
I figured if I played in the no-man’s land of intimacy, I would learn to be a performer.
I wanted to do pop music, and I wanted to dance. I wanted all this because that was me. This is my inner performer, that is what it wants, this is what my heart wants.
I work with amazing organisations: I work with I’m A Performer With Disability, and I work with a clinic which tries to get opportunities for people with disabilities to work in the film and TV industry, and we’re making strides, and they’re making strides.
It’s difficult to be a mother and maintain a career as a performer – but then it’s difficult in any industry.
One piece of advice that I would give to any young athlete or performer is remember to thank your mom.
I do like Jason Statham as a person and as an actor. I think he’s a great performer, and he delivers every time.
I am a professional performer and I only appear on TV for entertainment or for philanthropic organizations, and I consider this a very serious matter that doesn’t fit into either category.
I want to be a great performer.
I think I have always been a performer a little bit in my heart.
I miss my hair, but I feel like going out there with some fake braids wouldn’t be right. I want to be the most genuine performer I can be.
Immediate, simultaneous connection between the audience and a performer is crucial to me. It’s why I do what I do. Other things, like recording, are satisfying, but they’re not the same. I love the connection I get with the audience when I’m sitting behind that piano.
I paint because I love to paint. If someone buys the prints or whatever, so be it, but it’s not my main form of business. As a performer, that is my main form of business.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a performer – whether it was acting or singing or whatever.
You’re not going to find a more committed performer than Sandra Oh – to every single word, action, history that informs the future. Every little thing.
You want the personality of each performer – whether it’s singing or bass or drums or piano – to be intact. In some ways it’s much more challenging to preserve that and to also make music that sounds modern.
I think my strength as a performer is my ability to straddle the fence between comedy and tragedy.
My entire life, I’ve always known that I wanted to be a performer, but I didn’t know exactly how, where or when. I never learned or studied the craft, formally. I grew up doing martial arts and playing piano. But, something inside of me always said that I was going to do this, as far back as I can remember.
I feel like I needed to grow up. I needed to grow up as a songwriter. I needed to grow up as a singer, a performer. I needed to grow up as a woman.
I wouldn’t say that I was a born performer, because I work very hard at it.
You put me in the room with my family and everyone I grew up with, and I’d be the last person that you’d say is the performer.
I am a big fan of Sakshi Tanwar. I love her as a performer.
Your average director will be content with something that comes across as truthful, but we know, as fellow actors, that that’s not great for a performer. They have to feel that what they’re conveying is honest.
I see myself as a performer and that applies to a Greek drama or a modern comedy.
I look up to Mick Jagger because he’s an amazing performer and he’s such an individual. I respect him and admire him eternally.
Something can be said for quitting for a little while. You can get completely drained as a performer and creator. You have to fill back up.
I’m a hometown girl, and my personality at home is the opposite of the performer in me. But then, when I’m home and haven’t done anything for a while, I get really itchy and nervous and weird-feeling.
As a performer you often feel that you’re the child and everyone else is a grown-up.
Doing ‘Comedy Bang! Bang!,’ you have to play at the top of your abilities, so it is so fun to get that opportunity. I’ve grown a lot as a performer just working with those guys.
I lived for 15 years in Los Angeles, and I still can’t believe that the handsomest man in the world, Cary Grant, and the greatest performer in the world, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Carson, one after another – they were all in my home at different times. I celebrated my 50th birthday with them. Unforgettable.
Very early, I thought I would go into music, but I was aware that it would bring a set of obstacles I didn’t find particularly attractive. Also, I’m not a great performer! For a while, I thought I would do something in landscape gardening. But it was always fashion for me.
For the past few years, I was the more visible Asian performer, and I think it gave young girls a kind of role model showing it’s possible to actually reach success doing movies.
I dropped the ‘Bundy’ with my country music because I wanted it to be two separate things: There’s me as a songwriter and a country singer, and there’s me as a Broadway performer.
George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved.
I love the stuff that makes you laugh and cry. It kind of sucker-punches you a little bit. That’s the thing that most interests me as a performer, in addition to telling the most captivating story.
No, I’m a theatrical, live performer or a movie performer.
I’m an artist, a performer… There’s an art to what we do to the wrestling… I don’t want to really fight anybody.
I actually enjoy Britney Spears. Not as a singer but as a performer. I just enjoy watching her. I think, ‘You are so brave.’
I want to be a well-rounded, versatile performer.
At the end of the day, I look at it like this: pro wrestling is really hard on the performers, the luchadoras, and any time a performer is in a position to do something good for themselves and make money, I’m always happy to see that happen.
Objectivity is almost a choice you make. As a burlesque performer, I didn’t choose to be objectified.
As a performer you are being used to keep people watching so the commercial endorsements that support the network can be seen by as many people as possible.
I’d always wanted to be an actress, and suddenly I knew that learning to control my facial muscles was one of the best assets I could have as a performer.
If you don’t take no chances, then you’re not a performer. Performers always take chances. You go see a singer, they’ll hit the high note. They’ll hit that note, they’re not afraid, they’re gonna exaggerate the fact and make me enjoy it, make me say, ‘Wow, I wish I could do that!’
It’s funny how you can say performing is in the blood, and if I’m considered a performer being an actor, then it’s certainly in the blood.
I think we’ve become a TV culture, where we forget the live performer in front of us can see us. I think there is a self-centeredness that happens. There’s nothing more important than what you are doing in that moment. So, unless it’s an emergency, put your phone away.
In all these years of doing theatre, I’ve been a very physical performer – physically demonstrative, yet sticking to the realism of the piece.
To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don’t know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.
Because of my Asian-ness, I couldn’t be anonymous – what I said, what I ate, what I did at the weekend were startlingly different to what everyone else did. I was also a performer, quick and chameleon-like, good at accents, so that made me stand out.
You talk about meant to be – oh my goodness, I have never done anything else in my life except be a performer.
The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I’ve got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.
