A fan once stopped me outside a theatre and gave me as a gift a signed photograph of Sir Laurence Olivier. It was strange, but nice, too.
The think that we hung the film version all on was ‘Hedwig’ on tour. On stage, it’s one theatre, one show. It just seemed natural to change it. In the film, we were able to go to flashback rather than have her talk to the audience. And we had the play to practice and to see where we had made mistakes.
I’d love to do just straight theatre. I’d love to do film and television, too.
I like to use my hands. When I was in theatre in college, that was one of my biggest notes: ‘You use your hands too much.’
My main ambitions, really, are in the theatre.
I went to a lot of theatre schools, got a lot of training, did a lot of repertory where you do a different play every night. I took a lot of voice, movement, and acting classes.
I want to keep doing interesting work with interesting people in whatever form that may take, but I want to play the big parts of classical theatre; I want to go on stage and play great Shakespearean roles and, at the same time, do amazing, challenging indie films and comedy, and I want to do it all. I am greedy.
I came up almost completely through the subsidised theatre. I have never been absolutely at the market interface, where I’ve got to sell my wares or die – I’ve always been protected from that.
In theatre, previews are the first draft of a show. I strongly believe that. The only way we can truly tell whether that draft works is by having an audience present.
I just enjoy acting, whatever area – theatre, film, television.
Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.
I feel like theatre gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive, basically. Film gives me the thrill, and it’s like a one night stand. But I do enjoy being around people who love it so much.
For my first acting job I played the role of Ensign Pulver in ‘Mr. Roberts’ at the Manitoba Theatre Centre.
I used to love stage above all, but that was when I was a single man. As I get older, the time commitment gets harder for theatre.
At 17 years old, STG took me under its wing and shared its resources and wisdom with me, even allowing me to take part in a show at the Edinburgh Festival. Without STG and the Ramshorn Theatre, I would not have found access to the world of drama that I later made my profession.
I’d like more kids to go and see theatre because it really is amazing.
I fell into the theatre because I felt I was doing it well, and I stuck to it for the same reason.
There’s nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can’t be the one in rehearsal who doesn’t know their lines.
London theatre is different: it is a commercial theatre that brings the whole of society into one place. And Shakespeare grasped, better than anyone else, what it means to engage the entire audience.
Lou Tyrrell has created a theatre that is a safe haven for playwrights, a birthing center for new American writing. Arts Garage has created a vital, enthusiastic audience for theatre, music, painting and sculpture in Delray Beach.
I feel that I communicate best when I am not deliberately being linear. Along this same line, I feel some of the best sermons I’ve ever heard were in the theatre rather than the pulpit – as, for example, in the Theatre of the Absurd.
When we’d suggested doing it, the Theatre Royal management had said, ‘Nobody wants to see Waiting for Godot.’ As it happened, every single ticket was booked for every single performance, and this confirmation that our judgment was right was sweet. Audiences came to us from all over the world. It was amazing.
People ask me if I ever feel outside the Hollywood loop, and I never do, because both of us do a lot of theatre, so it’s great for New York and it’s also half-way between Europe and the west coast, so it’s the best of both worlds.
Honestly, I actually would really love to see more musical theatre actors do the movie adaptations of shows – I think that would be really great to see.
I started doing more theatre because I love that and I ended up doing television. I ended up doing it.
When people leave the theatre, they should remember a line, a character, a sequence or emotion. With entertainment, I want to give meaningful cinema.
I love the theatre. It’s a perfect life for an actor: you can do a couple of movies and then go and do a play, and then go back and do another movie. It’s a nice way to live your life.
American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.
I think theatre at its best looks into the dark corners; clearly, my dark corners are full of doom.
I go to the theatre expecting to have a good time. I want each play and performance to take me somewhere. Naturally, this doesn’t always happen.
Since I was a child I’ve loved going to the opera, theatre and ballet.
I decided to do theatre intensely. I joined Makarand Deshpande’s group Ansh. He became my guru. That’s where I met Anurag Kashyap and Kay Kay Menon. These were the people who supported and inspired me.
Yeah, well I’ve always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that’s really where my training is. As an actor, that’s my training.
The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: ‘Tobacco Road’, ‘Abie’s Irish Rose’ and our old friend ‘Spider-Man’, which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.
I come from a TV background, so for me this more like doing a freeing theatre piece because we’d go into a room and do the scene, instead of doing it as a wide shot, medium shot, and close up with only the odd line of dialogue.
I have done film, television and theatre – all at a pretty substantial level – I don’t think it’s possible for American actors to do that.
The reason why I hate working in theatre is the tedium of memorisation. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are very difficult to find in everyday life.
When someone comes forward and is an individual, such as a Lady Gaga or a Katy Perry, people respond to them because there is that sense of innocence. It’s obviously dress up and theatre.
It’s one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work – the night watchman.
Mum wasn’t at all religious, but she thought that going to the theatre was as important a ceremonial, communal experience that a person could have.
I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me.
I realized that I wanted to play characters and do traditional theatre. I wanted to make believe again. I like putting on a costume and pretending to be someone else for a few hours, and I have a great respect for playwrights.
In the theatre the audience wants to be surprised – but by things that they expect.
I used to do puppet theatre and also mime and musical theatre in Florida for competitions and festivals, which was great. I was very much involved in theatre when I was in college.
I love the intimacy of making movies. The focus is deeper and much more intense than musical theatre.
I went to Paris for a year in 1986 to study theatre; there was a lot of clowning around, buffoonery and fencing. It was then that my own style kind of blossomed.
Kerri and I met at theatre camp when were 16 years old, which is pretty lame. The rest of us met when we founded the State at New York University in 1988. Most of our adult lives have been spent bickering with these people.
Theatre is about people, not buildings. Incalculable damage has been done to the expert talent a company needs – from wardrobe to lighting technicians.
I hope to continue working in film, television and theatre.
I used to do a lot of serious theatre during my school and college days. Comedy was only reserved for youth festival and inter-college competitions. Then once ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’ was launched, a regional channel in Punjab started a program based on that. I participated in it and emerged as the winner.
My phrase has always been that I am looking for the versatility of theatre in film. I think I have been quite lucky in that so far.
Directing is something I always wanted to do. I started when I was 13 directing scenes in high school and then plays in college with my theatre company.
I started in theatre. I was at Cleveland and I went to London for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.
I did a lot of theatre when I started out. It was the Lyceum, the Citz, the Tron and the Traverse. I came to London and did the Royal Court, the National, ‘King Lear’ at the Manchester Royal Exchange. I did little bits of comedy, like ‘Rab C Nesbitt,’ but I wasn’t predominantly about comedy.
That’s the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.
There are all sorts of reasons why I don’t do much work in the theatre, the main one being that after two performances I feel I’ve given all I can. I hate repetition, I really do. It’s like asking a painter to paint he same picture every day of his life.
