There’s an ecstasy about doing something really good on film: the composition of a shot, the drama within the shot, the texture… It’s palpable.
I have been working as an actor for 16-17 years now. The funny thing is I still feel awkward in communicating with the public as a star. It hasn’t been long since my drama ‘Goblin’ ended, and I’m looking forward for some time to rest.
The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.
Mum put me in drama classes when I was about 14. I’d been going on about it for some time, so maybe it was a way to shut me up.
Comedy does offer an avenue to television and film careers for untelegenic people that great drama does not.
I actually had a cockney accent before I went to drama school. It’s softened up a bit.
Dramas for me are where it’s at, but a great drama, a great character-driven drama, there’s very few of them that get made; there’s very few of them that actually make it to theaters. There’s just very few of them.
I love doing comedy and I love watching comedy… I’m more inclined to go watch a Seth Rogen film than a serious Oscar drama.
In taking stock of ourselves, we should not forget that fear plays a large part in the drama of failure. That is the first thing to be dropped. Fear is a mental deficiency susceptible of correction, if taken in hand before it gains an ascendency over us. Fear comes with the thought of failure.
You know, comedy’s hard. With drama, you have a responsibility to the emotional truth, but with comedy, you have emotional truth and you have technique on top of it.
When I was young, I did varied after-school activities – I did art, drama, science, math. I’m not the sporty kind of person, but I did get a certificate on outdoor recreation.
I think if I had joined the Army early, I would not have been able to appear in the drama ‘Boys over Flowers’ and had such a happy 20s.
I got into the Shanghai Drama Institute because my parents, like all parents, want their children to have good grades and to go to a good college. I became a college student because of them.
What allows us, as human beings, to psychologically survive life on earth, with all of its pain, drama, and challenges, is a sense of purpose and meaning.
I consider myself a ‘local’ actor in France. I started out in France, I went to drama school in France and the French film community was very welcoming to me when I was a young actress.
The only way we are going to get diversity is if the demographics of the decision-makers change… The odd-token bone thrown is not going to do it. Don’t pat yourself on the back because you made that black drama; that’s not diversity. It’s got to be baked into the foundation of where the ideas flow from.
I don’t want the money. I don’t want the drama. I just want to do my show. I want to have fun again.
There’s not a lot of room anymore for what I call ‘made-up’ drama. The drama comes from real places now – marriage takes work and focus, the kid stuff takes patience and commitment. And if you don’t grow as people and as a couple, within all of that, then you’ve got some real drama.
When I emerged from drama school, I had no expectation that I would ever work in film.
I know nothing about producing TV drama and any involvement on my part is liable to prove an obstacle to the producers, so I prefer to be a cheerleader and let them get on with it.
I don’t remember a drama on TV that had shown a couple could be married but still love each other very much, spend every day as if they were still on their honeymoon, be sensuous, and have fun together.
And the only studies were – Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.
Drama starts where logic ends.
I probably prefer comedy. Why? I’m not sure. I feel like the energy of a comedy is a better fit for me. I try to be a happy guy! It seems that most of my life has the energy more for a comedy than for drama. I’m grateful to do both, but I would have to lean towards the comedy side of acting.
Drama can be an addiction. It’s so, so sneaky. Jealousy – all of those things can really send you in a lot of different crazy directions.
I have never been in, nor have I had any strong particular desire to be in, what is termed a costume drama, but I keep forgetting to think of ‘Charles II’ as a costume drama.
You don’t necessarily need a script or actors to tell a compelling tale. Finding a person at a key moment in his life and rendering the truth as you see it – that’s the truest form of drama.
As a boy, I’d always had an interest in theater. But the idea at my school was that drama and music were to round out the man. It wasn’t what one did for a living. I got over that.
Nothing can ever be a rule in drama, because then you’re saying certain things won’t ever happen, and that would be very boring.
As a young girl, I was too intent on getting to London and drama school and out of east Yorkshire to think about winning Oscars. I did win a Bafta once, and was so unprepared for it I jabbered on for a minute – a minute too long.
I was a solid C student because I was doing so many plays. I was a drama nerd, but I was also kind of a Zelig-like character; I would shift between different groups of people. But the people I spent most of my time with were either chorus or swing choir or the drama nerds.
Drama and comedy, to me, are all about being surprising, coherent, and true, all at once.
I always assumed I would leave drama school and do ‘Lady Macbeth’ and all sorts of serious things. It just didn’t happen.
Not having gone to drama school, I always feel like a bit of a fraud, but so far it looks as though I’ve not been found out.
I think I’ve played a lesbian about five times. The first one was with Helen Baxendale in a drama called ‘The Investigator,’ about the conditions lesbians had to live under in the army in Britain, which was based on a true story.
People talk worse about people than they talk good about people, because a lot of people like drama.
So many people prefer to live in drama because it’s comfortable. It’s like someone staying in a bad marriage or relationship – it’s actually easier to stay because they know what to expect every day, versus leaving and not knowing what to expect.
The drama nerd comes out in me when I’m in a theater.
We just happened to come along at time where there hadn’t been a new young adult drama that also could appeal to adults as well in quite some time. We sort of found a little bit of a niche.
When the rose and the cross are united the alchemical marriage is complete and the drama ends. Then we wake from history and enter eternity.
I went to drama school for four years at Carnegie Mellon, conservatory training before television comedy. I was doing Shakespeare and Chekov plays. It’s about delivering on the promise of a $100,000 education and taking the shackles off and trying the hand at my craft. I’m thrilled with what I’ve seen so far.
At its core, ‘Heroes’ is an ensemble character drama with genre elements.
I think it’s really important to have good quality drama on TV.
I grew up in Oldham and moved to Manchester and London. I didn’t go to drama school. I just did a B-Tech.
A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.
I would say I’ve actually done a lot more comedy than I’ve done drama. It’s weird the way that worked out, because when I came out of theater school I took myself way too seriously, so it’s kind of ironic that I ended up sort of going down the comedy path.
The most famous person in my phone is Lindsay Lohan. We starred in ‘Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen’ together in 2004 and we’ve stayed in touch.
Sometimes I’ll turn the channel and there’s the movie and I can honestly say that those last few minutes always fascinate me. It’s one of the rare instances when image, music, and drama work effectively.
My father died prematurely at the age of 52 when I was 24, and it is a recurring regret that he never lived to see me succeed beyond university and drama.
From comedy, mythology, and drama to reality show, I have never stopped myself from taking risks.
I started acting when I was young, and I didn’t go to drama school. It was always something that I did alongside going to school and being a normal person.
My childhood has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.
In television, women can really run anything. It can be a comedy, it can be a drama, it can be genre, it can be anything. But in films, women are still getting to the top.
I was this weird misfit guy from suburban Seattle, I never really fit in, and then I became a drama geek, among all the other different kinds of geek that I was growing up, and I found I was pretty good at it.
Olivier said that drama is an affair of the heart, or it’s nothing, and he was right.
I’m not a huge drama person. I think I liked them more when I was younger.
