An Actor Prepares Quotes

A phenomenon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self — a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it. There is a theatrical quality about all this, and during the next several days, as I went about stolidly preparing for extinction, I couldn't shake off a sense of melodrama — a melodrama in which I, the victim-to-be of self-murder, was both the solitary actor and lone member of the audience.

You can kill the King without a sword, and you can light the fire without a match. What needs to burn is your imagination.

In the circle of light on the state in the midst of darkness, you have the sensation of being entirely alone... This is called solitude in public... During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle, like a snail in its shell... You can carry it wherever you go.

Everyone at every minute of his life must feel something. Only the dead have no sensations.

The actor does not live, he plays. He remains cold toward the object of his acting but his art must be perfection.

On the stage do not run for the sake of running, or suffer for the sake of suffering. Don’t act “in general”, for the sake of action; always act with a purpose.

All action in the theatre must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent and real.

While eating our feast, we watch The Big Lebowski, which is sort of bizarre, because Alex was trying to get me to watch this a couple of months ago. And the Roths have it on DVD, so they are all amazed I’ve never seen it. Turns out, it’s really good. And what’s even better, in addition to Porter preparing me for the sound of gunshots in the movie—so I won’t be caught off guard—and quoting lines along with the actors, which makes me smile despite the dreary events of the day, is when he leans close and whispers into my ear, “You belong here with me.” And for that moment, I believe that I do.

They decided they needed to start their own theatre company to have careers as actors, because neither was prepared to betray their politics to find jobs Or shut their mouths to keep them

Your lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you’re even middle-aged, you’ll start to donate your vital organs. That’s what each of you was created to do. You’re not like the actors you watch on your videos, you’re not even like me. You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided. So you’re not to talk that way any more. You’ll be leaving Hailsham before long, and it’s not so far off, the day you’ll be preparing for your first donations. You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.

The actor Richard Burton once wrote an article for the New York Times about his experience playing the role of Winston Churchill in a television drama: "In the course of preparing myself...I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history.... What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, 'We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth? Such simple--minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single--minded and merciless ferocity."--

sodoyouthinkyoucouldtrustmetogotothedancetonight?" she blurted before losing her nerve. Viktor and Viveka exchanged a quick glance. Are they considering it? They are! They trust - "No," they said together. Frankie resisted the urge to spark. Or scream. Or threaten to go on a charging strike. She had prepared herself for this. It had always been a possibility. That's why she'd read 'Acting For Young Actors: The Ultimate Teenage Guide' by Mary Lou Belli and Dihah Lenney. So she could act like she understood their rejection. Act like she accepted it. And act like she would return to her room with grace. "Well, thanks for hearing me out," she said, kissing them on the cheeks and skipping off to bed. "Good night." "Good night?" Viktor responded. "That's it? No argument?" "No argument," Frankie said with a sweet smile. "You have to see this punishment through or you're not teaching me anything. I get it." "O-kay." Viktor returned to his medical journal, shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "We love you." Viveka blew another kiss. "I love you, too." Frankie blew two back. Time for Plan B.

If you speak any lines, or do anything, mechanically, without fully realizing who you are, where you came from, why, what you want, where you are going, and what you will do when you get there, you will be acting without imagination. That time, whether it will be short or long, will be unreal, and you will be nothing more than a wound-up machine, an automation.

don’t spend your time chasing after an inspiration that once chanced your way. It is as unrecoverable as yesterday, as the joys of childhood, as first love. Bend your efforts to creating a new and fresh inspiration for today. There is no reason to suppose that it will be less good than yesterday’s. It may not be as brilliant. But you have the advantage of possessing it today.

All this and much else besides is merely a form of identification. Such considering is wholly based upon ‘requirements’. A man inwardly ‘requires’ that everyone should see what a remarkable man he is and that they should constantly give expression to their respect, esteem, and admiration for him, for his intellect, his beauty, his cleverness, his wit, his presence of mind, his originality, and all his other qualities. Requirements in their turn are based on a completely fantastic notion about themselves such as very often occurs with people of very modest appearance. Various writers, actors, musicians, artists, and politicians, for instance, are almost without exception sick people. And what are they suffering from? First of all from an extraordinary opinion of themselves, then from requirements, and then from considering, that is, being ready and prepared beforehand to take offence at lack of understanding and lack of appreciation.

At the bottom of every process of obtaining creative material for our work is emotion. Feeling, however, does not replace an immense amount of work on the part of our intellects. Perhaps you are afraid that the little touches which your mind may add on its own account will spoil your material drawn from life? Never fear that. Often these original additions enhance it greatly if your belief in them is sincere.

Today the Director opened his remarks by telling us what we must always do when the author, the director, and the others who are working on a production, leave out things we need to know. We must have, first of all, an unbroken series of supposed circumstances in the midst of which our exercise is played. Secondly we must have a solid line of inner visions bound up with those circumstances, so that they will be illustrated for us. During every moment we are on the stage, during every moment of the development of the action of the play, we must be aware either of the external circumstances which surround us (the whole material setting of the production), or of an inner chain of circumstances which we ourselves have imagined in order to illustrate our parts. Out of these moments will be formed an unbroken series of images, something like a moving picture. As long as we are acting creatively, this film will unroll and be thrown on the screen of our inner vision, making vivid the circumstances among which we are moving. Moreover, these inner images create a corresponding mood, and arouse emotions, while holding us within the limits of the play.

A mysterious and marvelous confectionary utopia, a colorful interior world filled with wonder and sweet marvel. Most of the actors hadn’t seen the Chocolate Room prior to filming, and even my brief peek didn’t prepare me for the sheer magnitude of this set.

On Dussehra, the day marking the victory of good over evil, however, the city of Bombay prepared to receive another wannabe incarnation of God. This time the mode of conveyance was not the television set, but a Swaraj Mazda souped up to resemble a chariot. And the new, self-styled avatar of Rama was not an actor but a politician: L. K. Advani, president of the BJP.

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor’s preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum rolls the two flag-bearers hurled their flags high into the air and caught them, the crowd roaring in approval. The winner of the extremely dangerous horse race is presented with a palio, a standard bearing the effigy of the Virgin. In the last few years the jockeys have had to be professional by law, as when they were amateurs, corruption and bribery were rife. The teams wear a curious fancy dress encompassing styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. They are followed by gangs of young men, supporters, who create an atmosphere or intense rivalry and barely suppressed violence as they run through the narrow streets in the heat of the day. It was perfect. I took many more photographs. At the farmhouse that evening, after far too much Chianti, I and my friends played a bizarre game. In the dark, some of us moved lighted candles from one room to another, whilst others watched the effect of the light on faces and on the rooms from outside. It was like a strange living film of the paintings we had seen. Maybe Derek Jarman was spying on us.

To avoid such mistakes, remember, for all time, that when you begin to study each role you should first gather all the materials that have any bearing on it, and supplement them with more and more imagination, until you have achieved such a similarity to life that it is easy to believe in what you are doing. in the beginning forget about your feelings. When the inner conditions are prepared, and right, feelings will come to the surface of their own accord.

You should first of all assimilate the model. This is complicated. You study it from the point of view of the epoch, the time, the country, condition of life, background, literature, psychology, the soul, way of living, social position, and external appearance; moreover, you study character, such as custom, manner, movements, voice, speech, intonations, All this work on your material will help you permeate it with your own feelings. Without all this you will have no art.

Actress Winona Ryder, who starred in Beetlejuice, Mermaids, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Little Women thought she had it all. She was famous, making lots of money, and was romantically involved with actor Johnny Depp. But it wasn’t enough. She shared in an interview in October 2000, “When I was 18, I was driving around at two in the morning, completely crying and alone and scared. I drove by this magazine stand that has this Rolling Stone that I was on the cover of, and it said, ‘Winona Ryder: The Luckiest Girl in the World.’ And there I was feeling more alone than I ever had.

What distinguishes the talented person who makes it from the person who has even more talent but doesn’t get ahead? Look at the aspiring actors waiting tables in New York, as an example: Many of them are probably no less gifted than stars like Robert DeNiro and Susan Sarandon. Part of what constitutes success is timing and chance. But most of us have to create our own opportunities and be prepared to jump when we see a big one others can’t see. It’s one thing to dream, but when the moment is right, you’ve got to be willing to leave what’s familiar and go out to find your own sound. That’s what I did in 1985. If I hadn’t, Starbucks wouldn’t be what it is today.

We celebrate the dedication of Olympic athletes who diet and train and exercise daily for years in order to prepare for the games. They give up not only physical comfort but also any hope of a normal social and family life. When police officers or firefighters die, often thousands turn out for their funerals. We honor our children who die in military service in much the same way—often arranging public ceremonies and holidays. We expect television celebrities such as actors, news correspondents and musicians to sacrifice any kind of normal life in order to entertain us around the clock—and they are paid millions of dollars to do so. The names of astronauts become household words because they risk their lives in order to forward the conquest of space. But the minute a Christian young person starts to fast and pray, consider the mission field or give up career or romance for Christ—concerned counselors, family and friends will spend hours trying to keep him or her from “going off the deep end on this religious stuff.” Even devout Christian parents will oppose Christian service when their own son or daughter is about to give up all for Christ. Discipline, pain, sacrifice and suffering are rewarded with fame and fortune in the world. Why then do we refuse to accept it as a normal part of giving spiritual birth in the kingdom of our Lord?

something's knocking at the door     a great white light dawns across the continent as we fawn over our failed traditions, often kill to preserve them or sometimes kill just to kill. it doesn’t seem to matter: the answers dangle just out of reach, out of hand, out of mind.     the leaders of the past were insufficient, the leaders of the present are unprepared. we curl up tightly in our beds at night and wait. it is a waiting without hope, more like a prayer for unmerited grace.     it all looks more and more like the same old movie. the actors are different but the plot’s the same: senseless.     we should have known, watching our fathers. we should have known, watching our mothers. they did not know, they too were not prepared to teach. we were too naive to ignore their counsel and now we have embraced their ignorance as our own. we are them, multiplied. we are their unpaid debts. we are bankrupt in money and in spirit.     there are a few exceptions, of course, but these teeter on the edge and will at any moment tumble down to join the rest of us, the raving, the battered, the blind and the sadly corrupt.     a great white light dawns across the continent, the flowers open blindly in the stinking wind, as grotesque and ultimately unlivable our 21st century struggles to be born.

It means the story of the play, its facts, events, epoch, time and place of action, conditions of life, the actors’ and regisseur’s interpretation, the mise-en-scene, the production, the sets, the costumes, properties, lighting and sound effects,—all the circumstances that are given to an actor to take into account as he creates his role. ‘If is the starting point, the given circumstances, the development. The one cannot exist without the other, if it is to possess a necessary stimulating quality. However, their functions differ somewhat: if gives the push to dormant imagination, whereas the given circumstances build the basis for if itself. And they both, together and separately, help to create an inner stimulus.

They say that Ridley is a very visual director and he’s indifferent with actors. He’s obviously changed over the years, but I’ll never forget this one sequence. We had wind machines going full blast, we had unicorns, smoke effects, moonbeams coming down, we had all these pigeons dyed different colours, we had a bear eating honey, we had bees floating around, butterflies and sparrows, we had everything. We were in the studio from seven o’clock in the morning until two, without breaking for lunch, preparing this one shot. When Ridley had everything right he shouted, ‘Shoot, for Christ’s sake shoot!’ And old Bill Westley, the AD, turned around and said, ‘What about the max factors then guv?’ meaning the actors. And Ridley went, ‘Oh fuck. Quick, go and get them.’ And Bill rushed out and brought Tom Cruise and Mia Sara on and Ridley went, ‘Ah, OK Tom you sit over there and Mia you sit next to him and just talk among yourselves. OK. And action!

Both Cooper and Brennan got their start as extras. Like Brennan, Cooper had learned his craft by roaming around movie lots, absorbing the atmosphere and watching how things were done—especially the subtle interplay between actors, and between the best actors and the camera lens, which always picked up details that not even the most perceptive directors could spot before they were projected onto a screen. And like Brennan, when Cooper got his first two minutes of screen time, he was prepared. Watch him in Wings, playing an aviator about to go to his death, enter a tent and converse with the film’s two stars, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen, who are immediately fascinated by his bluff allure. He is a hero without bravado. He is for those two minutes the picture’s star, the very embodiment of what Hemingway called grace under pressure. Cooper’s ability to convey composure just before a dogfight, to act with such quiet courtesy and aplomb, stuns Rogers and Arlen—and just that quickly Cooper takes the picture away from them.

It is therefore worth noting, and indeed wonderful to see, how man, besides his life in the concrete, always lives a second life in the abstract. In the former he is abandoned to all the storms of reality and to the influence of the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the animal. But his life in the abstract, as it stands before his rational consciousness, is the calm reflection of his life in the concrete, and of the world in which he lives; it is precisely that reduced chart or plan previously mentioned. Here in the sphere of calm deliberation, what previously possessed him completely and moved him intensely appears to him cold, colourless, and, for the moment, foreign and strange; he is a mere spectator and observer. In respect of this withdrawal into reflection, he is like an actor who has played his part in one scene, and takes his place in the audience until he must appear again. In the audience he quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation of his own death (in the play); but then he again goes on the stage, and acts and suffers as he must. From this double life proceeds that composure in man, so very different from the thoughtlessness of the animal.

The toy is the lodestar of the child’s survival. The consequences of his failure to get his toy are disastrous. That Hoffman’s—and anyone else’s—pursuit of glory operates in the same way is why one man’s fear of failure and striving for perfection is significant, why it is not a matter of bourgeois decadence, in a world where a million Syrian children are in exile and starving. The Syrian child, the child lacking his toy, and the actor fear for their survival. How will they survive? And how will they medicate their fear? I suppose this is the moment where I am supposed to say that fear can be conquered by trusting in the risen Lord or whatever. But I would just as well save the reflex. I would just as well not waste meaningless words to counter the assertion about which Hoffman was exactly right: this world is damn terrifying. It is easy enough to say that fear is an illusion or something trumped-up when you don’t read the newspaper or have a frank conversation with your friend. How could one not be scared in a world where your birth is the beginning of your preparation for death? This is a world of cancer and hunger and beheadings and layoffs and heartbreak and stabbings and innumerable and head-spinning and creative forms of violence and lovelessness. This is a world where people are still burnt alive. That is, in this world there are people who must endure, for several hundred seconds, the sensation of a hot iron enveloping the body until they die of bleeding, inhalation, or organ failure. What sane person would not be terrified in such a world?

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

Among the people who asked about them was Bradley Cooper, thanks to Jason, who’d championed Chris and the book. Cooper was already a huge star, one who had a reputation for taking big risks and trying a variety of roles (including one in the TV series Alias the connection I promised earlier). None of that was important to Chris. If there was a movie, he wanted the actor who portrayed him to be a true American. He couldn’t stand actors who would make unpatriotic statements against the war and then turn around and do war films. He’d told Jim he didn’t want a hypocrite playing him. I think he would have chosen not to let a movie be done rather than agree to let people proceed with it whom he didn’t consider patriotic. And so for Chris, the most impressive thing about Bradley Cooper was not his acting ability or the enormous research he put into his roles, but the work he’d done helping veterans. He was a supporter of Got Your 6, an organization that helps veterans reintegrate into family life and their communities. He had also done some USO tours. I couldn’t imagine a better match. Still, Chris didn’t just say okay. He talked to Bradley before deciding to let him option the book and his life rights. I remember Chris coming out of his home office after the final conversation. He was smiling; Bradley had a great sense of humor, which was probably the first thing they bonded over. “How’d it go?” I asked. “Went good. I told him, ‘My only concern with you, Bradley--I might have to tie you up with a rope and pull you behind my truck to knock some of the pretty off you.” Bradley laughed. Still, he did just about everything short of that to prepare for the movie. He grew a beard, studied photos and videos, and worked out like a madman, getting himself into the proper shape to play a SEAL in the movie.

The universal survey of life as a whole, an advantage which man has over the animal through his faculty of reason, is also comparable to a geometrical, colourless, abstract, reduced plan of his way of life. He is therefore related to the animal as the navigator, who by means of chart, compass, and quadrant knows accurately at any moment his course and position on the sea, is related to the uneducated crew who see only the waves and skies. It is therefore worth noting, and indeed wonderful to see, how man, besides his life in the concrete, always lives a second life in the abstract. In the former he is abandoned to all the storms of reality and to the influence of the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the animal. But his life in the abstract, as it stands before his rational consciousness, is the calm reflection of his life in the concrete, and of the world in which he lives; it is precisely that reduced chart or plan previously mentioned. Here in the sphere of calm deliberation, what previously possessed him completely and moved him intensely appears to him cold, colourless, and, for the moment, foreign and strange; he is a mere spectator and observer. In respect of this withdrawal into reflection, he is like an actor who has played his part in one scene, and takes his place in the audience until he must appear again. In the audience he quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation of his own death (in the play); but then he again goes on the stage, and acts and suffers as he must. From this double life proceeds that composure in man, so very different from the thoughtlessness of the animal. According to previous reflection, to a mind made up, or to a recognized necessity, a man with such composure suffers or carries out in cold blood what is of the greatest, and often most terrible, importance to him, such as suicide, execution, duels, hazardous enterprises of every kind fraught with danger to life, and generally things against which his whole animal nature rebels. We then see to what extent reason is master of the animal nature, and we exclaim to the strong: ferreum certe tibi cor! (Truly hast thou a heart of iron!) [Iliad, xxiv, 521.] Here it can really be said that the faculty of reason manifests itself practically, and thus practical reason shows itself, wherever action is guided by reason, where motives are abstract concepts, wherever the determining factors are not individual representations of perception, or the impression of the moment which guides the animal.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

There is no requirement for those affected by an idea to be aware of any of this, of course. When the writer and media critic Philip Sandifer writes that "David Whitaker, at once the most important figure in Doctor Who's development and the least understood, created a show that is genuinely magical and this influence cannot be erased from within the show," he does not mean that any of the hundreds of actors and writers who went on to work on the programme saw it in those terms. Or as Sandifer so clearly puts it, "I don't actually believe that the writers of Doctor Who were consciously designing a sentient metafiction to continually disrupt the social order through a systematic process of détournement. Except maybe David Whitaker." From Drummond and Cauty's perspective, the story of Doctor Who is irrelevant. All that was happening was that they were exploring their mental landscape, and they were fulfilling their duty as artists by doing so more deeply than normal people. This is a landscape with many unseen, unknown areas where who-knows-what might be found. The KLF explored further than most and, if we were to accept Moore's model, it would perhaps not be surprising that a fiction as complex as Doctor Who could encounter them in Ideaspace and, being at its lowest point and in dire need of help, use them for its own ends. For Moore, and other artists such as David Lynch who use similar models, the role of the artist is like that of a fisherman. It is their job to fish in the collective unconscious and use all their skill to best present their catch to an audience. Drummond and Cauty, on the other hand, appear to have been caught by the fish. Lacking any clear sense of what they were doing, they dived in as deeply as Moore and Lynch. They did not have a specific purpose for doing so. They just needed to make something happen - anything really, such is the path of chaos. "It was supposed to be a proper dance record, but we couldn't fit the four-four beat to it, so we ended up with the glitter beat, which was never really our intention but we had to go with it," Cauty has said. "It was like an out of control lorry, you know, you're just trying to steer it, and that track took itself over really, and did what it wanted to do. We were just watching." This lack of intention is significant, from a magical point of view. One of the most important aspects of magical practice is the will. Aleister Crowley defined magic as being changes in the world brought about by the exercise of the will, hence his maxim 'Do what thou Will shall be the whole of the Law.' The will or intention of a magical act is important because the magician opens himself up to all sorts of strange powers and influences and he must avoid being controlled by them. Drummond and Cauty were not exerting any control on the process, and so they made themselves vulnerable to the who-knows-whats that live out of sight in the depths of Ideaspace. For this reason, you could understand why Moore would think that Bill Drummond was “totally mad." All this only applies if you're prepared to accept the notion of magic, of course.

KOSHO UCHIYAMA: Although Sawaki Roshi seemed manly, broad-minded, and carefree, he was also careful and behaved prudently. In contrast, although I’m his disciple and act open and undefended, I’m very nervous and anxious. I feel ashamed about almost everything. For example, in the middle of ceremonies, I often become flustered beyond control and so confused that I make big blunders. Afterward I feel so ashamed I wish I could disappear. However, because I have been very sensitive since childhood, in self-defense I finally had to settle into the stability of “Whatever happens, I am I.” After all, there’s no end to worrying about how to keep up appearances in this world, and it’s impossible to survive as such a fainthearted person. When I have butterflies in my stomach, that’s fine. When I make a big mess of something, what can I do besides accept it? There’s nothing else to do. Ultimately, the stability of “Whatever happens, I am I” is zazen as religion. Within this practice more than any other, a person like me can find salvation. I’m very grateful for this. Even if we don’t become an expert—always prepared, refined, and elegant like a veteran swordsman, virtuoso Noh actor, or tea master—we’re fine, aren’t we? What’s wrong with toddling and limping along the path of life practicing zazen?

the leader of the troupe, looked carefully at the girl in front of him. She was a real windfall, and since she herself was prepared to starve with them, he had no objection. She might even, if she had talent as she said, be good for the troupe. For years now he’d been traveling all over Greece. He had given performances in cafés, in the open air, even in barns. Once, when he was young, he had begun his career with lots of dreams, and he’d played beside some serious actors of the day. He’d managed to make a name for himself, but he very soon started to get into the drink. The beginning of the end had arrived, but he hadn’t understood it at the time. He began to forget his words onstage and to delay his entrances, creating gaps in the performance. Soon he stopped being in demand. When he met Zoe, he stopped drinking, but it was too late. Nobody trusted him, nobody would offer him even a small role. But the bug for acting didn’t leave him. He formed his own troupe and from then on he traveled around the countryside. A lot of people had been with him and moved on. Some were real actors and some didn’t want to believe that they would never become actors. Very occasionally, real talent had appeared beside him, but precisely because of that talent they always left for some theater in Athens. He had suffered hundreds of humiliations. Frustrated by the troupe’s poor performances, audiences often threw whatever they found at them, forcing the show to end. And it wasn’t so unusual for them to have to flee from a village in the night so that the disgruntled locals, who felt they’d been cheated after such a bad show, didn’t beat them up. Tickets were often used to barter for eggs, honey, corn, even vegetables—the important thing was for the troupe to eat. When they were lucky, though, they ate in a restaurant. They’d been able to do so today because the tour in Pieria had gone very well thanks to Martha, the woman who was observing Polyxeni so carefully. Lambros had to admit that her acting had saved the whole troupe. She’d been with them for two months, and things

When plans were made to put Dragnet on television, Webb ignored the wisdom of the time and prepared to use radio people, including Yarborough, in key roles. The question of the day, whenever radio people were considered for TV roles, was often cruelly blunt—will he look right? Webb answered it bluntly for Radio Life: “I’ll take the actor and he’ll look right.” One Dragnet TV show was shot with Yarborough as Romero, a preseries special, aired on NBC’s Chesterfield Sound-Off Time Dec. 16, 1951. Then Yarborough died suddenly, leaving a void on both Dragnets that was impossible to fill.

You face an audience and prepare to speak. Fear will be there, if you're alive. There is, of course, no shortage of feeling up there. It is an extreme act, unusual, testing you in unparalleled ways. It speaks to the core of who you are, and why you do what you do. These challenges, they exist in life and become acute on stage.

As A and B interact, in whatever manner, typifications will be produced quite quickly. A watches B perform. He attributes motives to B’s actions and, seeing the actions recur, typifies the motives as recurrent. As B goes on performing, A is soon able to say to himself, “Aha, there he goes again.” At the same time, A may assume that B is doing the same thing with regard to him. From the beginning, both A and B assume this reciprocity of typificatíon. In the course of their interaction these typifications will be expressed in specific patterns of conduct. That is, A and B will begin to play roles vis-à-vis each other. This will occur even if each continues to perform actions different from those of the other. The possibility of taking the role of the other will appear with regard to the same actions performed by both. That is, A will inwardly appropriate B’s reiterated roles and make them the models for his own role-playing. For example, B’s role in the activity of preparing food is not only typified as such by A, but enters as a constitutive element into A’s own food-preparation role. Thus a collection of reciprocally typified actions will emerge, habitualized for each in roles, some of which will be performed separately and some in common.22 While this reciprocal typification is not yet institutionalization (since, there only being two individuals, there is no possibility of a typology of actors), it is clear that institutionalization is already present in nucleo. At

Every human has a dream to get bigger in their life, Of course i am not a normal HUMAN, that's why I don't dream it, yes I am talking about the most prestigious The Academy awards :) preparing the speech for the future :) looking forward to get in reality soon

A theatrical tribute to John Knox is one way of measuring his failure. John Kox was a strong advocate of the death penalty for actors, and consistent supporters of his doctrine should properly have strung up Tom Fleming, his impersonator, along with the rest of the cast of Robert Kemp's Master John Knox presented at the Gateway Theatre during October. The play and the man cannot both be justified, and an unrealistic element enters into a theatrical interpretation that is devised to do fulsome homage to a historical character without conceding that he was one of the Theatre's most savage enemies. This element of calculated inaccuracy was sustained in a piece that Christopher Small, writing in the Glasgow Herald, rightly observed presented us with the Knox of tradition, or sentiment, rather than the Knox of history. But if we are prepared to swallow the legend, Mr. Kemp succeeded in giving it theatrical life.

Sometimes we get lost inside the process. In acting, Amie, it’s almost self-destructive, how much we care. How much of the world I let in and choose to feel. It can be overwhelming if you’re not prepared.

After all, when one asks if a person is being rational, we aren’t asking very much: really, just whether they are capable of making basic logical connections. The matter rarely comes up unless one suspects someone might actually be crazy or perhaps so blinded by passion that their arguments make no sense. Consider, in contrast, what’s entailed when one asks if someone is being "reasonable." The standard here is much higher. Reasonableness implies a much more sophisticated ability to achieve a balance between different perspectives, values, and imperatives, non of which, usually, could possibly be reduced to mathematical formulae. It means coming up with a compromise between positions that are, according to formal logic, incommensurable, just as there’s no formal way, when deciding what to cook for dinner, to measure the contrasting advantages of ease of preparation, healthiness, and taste. But of course we make such decisions all the time. Most of life--particularly life with others--consists of making reasonable compromises that could never be reduced to mathematical models. Another way to put this is that political theorists tend to assume actors who are operating on the intellectual level of an eight-year-old. Developmental psychologists have observed that children begin to make logical arguments not to solve problems, but when coming up with reasons for what they already wan to think. Anyone who deals with small children on a regular basis will immediately recognize that this is true. The ability to compare and coordinate contrasting perspectives on the other hand comes later and is the very essence of mature intelligence. It’s also precisely what those used to the power of command rarely have to do. (p. 200-201)

Becoming Roy Bean was an all-consuming project. Walter worked late into the night “making the old fellow come alive.” Weeks of preparation went into his performance. “I have literally become that man and will never for a single instant compromise with his character,” Walter insisted. “He must always be himself and never his brother or his uncle. I find myself eventually thinking like him.” Brennan had to see it in his own eyes as he watched himself on the screen. Had he made Judge Bean come alive? “I always say that an actor is no better than his last day’s rushes,” he said. You cannot fool the camera, Brennan liked to say. “The camera picks up what you think and not what you say or do. The reason I’m proof of that is because I’ve seen me give some lousy performances, and I said, ‘I wonder what I was thinking when I did that.

I’ve never liked the term ‘actor’.” Barron spoke slowly, joining hands with the cast members to his left and right. The rest of them formed a circle, also holding hands, and he continued. “Seriously now, is anyone here ‘acting’? Is anyone here pretending? “Me, I’m a theater director. One hundred percent, all the time. I’m not pretending, or acting, or trying to fool anyone. This is what I do, and I give it my all—just like you. I look around me, and I don’t see a single phony. I see people who give their hearts, their minds, and their very lives to being serious performers on the stage. In the last weeks I’ve watched every one of you give up the easy life to come here and bust a gut to make this show a reality. “That’s why I call you performers. Not actors—performers. Because when it’s time to prepare, you work out every nuance of a role. When it’s time to step in front of the crowd, you reach out and pull them in with both hands. When it’s time to say your lines, you deliver them with skill and meaning. That’s performance. And there’s nothing phony about that. There’s nothing pretend about that. There’s no acting that will take the place of that. “And so that’s my wish for you tonight: Have a great performance. You’ve done the work, you’re ready, and now it’s time to show off. Have fun out there, gang. Perform.

Karimi prepared his own response, which would be released to Reuters, “I disavow any knowledge of an Iranian nuclear missile destroying an Iraqi city or any missiles being launched from Iran. As leader of the country that’s been accused of nuking a fellow Muslim’s city, I feel that the Iraqis are making it up so that they can drag their American masters into another conflict. The Great Satan will do anything to keep Iranians under their boot heel, while the Zionists occupy land of our ancestors. I condemn the condemnation of Iran, we will not tolerate such baseless accusations that we tried to destroy another country. I invite the United Nations to cool down the situation, by asking them to hold a summit so we can discuss this most regrettable action by some rogue actor. All I want is peace.” then he had the wire service send it out across the world, causing some leaders worldwide to privately heap scorn on what Karimi said in his press release.

Professionals are known for putting the time in when it comes to preparation, a dancer will practice for months for a two hour performance, an actor will memorize lines and rehearse for months before appearing on stage. When you see the stars perform in front of the camera it looks like magic, they are so talented, they just turn up and dazzle everyone with their performance. What you don't see is the dedication to practice and the dedication to extensive and comprehensive preparation before a big event.

Imagine the literary buff, steeped in his beloved classics, rejoicing in a memory that sings, prepared to dispense kilowatts of goodwill, who fetches up at the Odeon on an off day. There are days like that, when everything rings hollow, and even the hollowness is unconvincing. There’s nothing to be done about it: the inspiration’s not there. He’s left with a terrible sense of disappointment, resentment, against whom he doesn’t exactly know: the playwright or the actors? All he can do is curl up in bed, alone, all alone, and console himself with suitably wrought alexandrines.

Like an actor preparing for a movie role, I was groomed for my role as a Male Courtesan, or Cicisbeo, to be of service to the Arabian elite and aristocratic Households. Cicisbei or Courtesans were, historically, highly learned and educated companions of the Royal Courts. More often than not, Cicisbei achieved a high quality of life, gaining worldly influences and respect. This is something an average person seldom would have had the privilege to experience. Besides their regular education, Cicisbei were taught the Art of Human Intimacies, Seduction, Flirtation, Health, Fitness, Grooming, Dress, Beauty, Sensuality and, of course, Sexuality.

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Comedy works best when an audience is not only prepared to laugh, but anxious to participate in a shared social experience. For release humor to work, the audience must be clued to every plot from the beginning. If the audience and the actor don’t know what’s behind the door, that’s mystery. If the audience knows, but someone else doesn’t, that’s release comedy.

Sir Ken Robinson, noted educationalist: ‘You will never do anything original, unless you are prepared to fail.

Modern art is a waste of time. When the zombies show up, you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies. Besides zombies and icebergs, there are other things that Soap has been thinking about. Tsunamis, earthquakes, Nazi dentists, killer bees, army ants, black plague, old people, divorce lawyers, sorority girls, Jimmy Carter, giant quids, rabid foxes, strange dogs, new anchors, child actors, fascists, narcissists, psychologists, ax murderers, unrequited love, footnotes, zeppelins, the Holy Ghost, Catholic priests, John Lennon, chemistry teachers, redheaded men with British accents, librarians, spiders, nature books with photographs of spiders in them, darkness, teachers, swimming pools, smart girls, pretty girls, rich girls, angry girls, tall girls, nice girls, girls with superpowers, giant lizards, blind dates who turn out to have narcolepsy, angry monkeys, feminine hygiene commercials, sitcoms about aliens, things under the bed, contact lenses, ninjas, performances artists, mummies, spontaneous combustion, Soap has been afraid of all of these things at one time or another, Ever since he went to prison, he's realized that he doesn't have to be afraid. All he has to do is come up with a plan. Be prepared. It's just like the Boy Scouts, except you have to be even more prepared. You have to prepare for everything that the Boy Scouts didn't prepare you for, which is pretty much everything.

What seemed like a problem to liberals—the fact that conservatives identify “up,” with the 1 percent, the planter class—was actually a source of pride to the Tea Party people I came to know. It showed you were optimistic, hopeful, a trier. It wasn’t a problem that you seldom looked behind you in line. Why would you want to blame a guy if he got all the way to the top? they wondered. That gaze forward, even when matters seemed hopeless, was a feature of the brave deep story self. But such a self was less and less a source of honor, it seemed. Rising to the fore was another kind of self, a more upper-middle-class cosmopolitan self, with its more dispersed and looser friendship networks, its preparation to compete for entrance to big-name colleges and tough careers that might take a person far from home. Such cosmopolitan selves were directed to the task of cracking into the global elite. They made do with living farther away from their roots. They were ready to go when opportunity knocked. They took great pride in liberal causes—human rights, racial equality, and the fight against global warming. Many upper-middle-class liberals, white and black, didn’t notice what, emotionally speaking, their kind of self was displacing. For along with blue-collar jobs, a blue-collar way of life was going out of fashion, and with it, the honor attached to a rooted self and pride in endurance—the deep story self. The liberal upper-middle class saw community as insularity and closed-mindedness rather than as a source of belonging and honor. And they didn’t see that, given trends “behind the brow of the hill,” their turn to be displaced might be next. For the Tea Party around the country, the shifting moral qualifications for the American Dream had turned them into strangers in their own land, afraid, resentful, displaced, and dismissed by the very people who were, they felt, cutting in line. The undeclared class war transpiring on a different stage, with different actors, and evoking a different notion of fairness was leading those engaged in it to blame the “supplier” of the imposters—the federal government.

Buchanan tried to whip the devil out of me. “Find your tongue, lad!” Forgive this regression, but the man hated English. He may have hated everything by then, including me, but he was uncommon prickly when it came to English. You could tell by the way he bullied it. “The bastarde English,” the old man roared. “The verie whoore of a tongue.” We did our best to mimic him note for note, gesture for gesture. He hated that, too. The verie whoore. Old Greek before Breakfast Latin by Noon himself. The point is, what English I had was beaten or twisted into me. We were orphaned and crowned before we could speak or take our first step. No father. No mother. Too many uncles. Hounds for baying. Buchanan was the most religious of my keepers, and the unkindest of spirits among them. We have been told the young queen of Scots was once his student, and that he loved her. Just before giving her over to wreckage, methinks. Pious frauds. Their wicked Jesus. Then occasion smil’d. We were thirteen. The affection of Esme Stuart was one thing, lavished, as it was, so liberally upon us, but the music of his voice was another. We empowered our cousin, gave him name, station, a new sense of gravity, height, and reach, all the toys of privilege. We were told he spoke our mother’s French, the way it flutters about your neck like a small bird. But it was his English that moved us. For the first time, there was kindness in it, charity, heat and light. We didn’t know language could do such things, that could charm with such violence, make such a disturbance in us. Our cousin was our excess, our vice, our great transgression according to some, treason according to others. They came one night and stole him from us, that is, from me. They tore me out of his arms, called me wanton. Better that bairns should weepe, they said. Barking curs. We never saw our cousin again and were never the same after. But the charm was wound up. If we say we can taste words, we are not trying to be clever. And we are an insatiable king. Try now, if you can, to understand the nature of our thoughts touching the translation, its want of a poet. We will consult with Sir Francis. He is closer to the man, some say, than a brother. English is mistress between them. There, Bacon says, is empire. There, a great Britain. Where it is dull, where the glow . . . gleam . . . where the gleam of Majestie is absent or mute . . . When occasion smiles again, we will send for the man, Shakespere. Majestie has left its print on his art. After that hideous Scottish play, his best, darkest, and most complicated characters are . . . us. Lear. Antony. Othello. Fools all. All. The English language must be the best that is in us . . . We are but names, titles, antiquities, forgotten speeches, an accident of blood and historical memory. Aye . . . but this marvelously unexceptional little man. No more of this. By the unfortunate title of this history we must, it seems, prepare ourselves for a tragedy. Some will escape. Some will not. For bully Ben can never suffer a true rival. He killed an actor once for botching his lines. Actors. Southampton waits in our chambers. We will let him. First, to our thoughts. Only then to our Lord of Southampton.

Luck also played a part. Any successful actor or writer or artist will tell you that luck is a crucial factor. But the only way to get lucky is to be prepared for luck to find you. Writers write. Actors act. If you’re not constantly applying your talents to your craft, no one is going to stop you on the street and say, “Hey, come write this TV show!” Or, “I want you to star in my movie.

On the other side of the river the lights of the South Bank theatre and concert halls were up. The actors would be preparing to perform emotions for those who had never felt those kinds of emotions in their lives and perhaps never would. Suffering had become a spectacle that served not to warn of the vagaries of misfortune but to remind the audience, sitting in warmth and comfort, of their own good fortune.

In a 1973 experiment called “From Jerusalem to Jericho,” researchers asked seminary students to prepare short talks about what it meant to be a minister. Some of them were given the parable of the Good Samaritan to help them prep. In this parable, Jesus told of a traveler who stopped to help a man in need when nobody else would. Then some excuse was made for them to switch to a different room. On their way to the new room, an actor, looking like he needed help, leaned in a doorway. Whether a student had been given materials about the Good Samaritan made no difference in whether the student stopped to help. The researchers did find that if students were in a hurry they were much less likely to help, and “on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!” The students were so focused on the task at hand that they forgot their deeper intentions. They were presumably studying at seminary with the intention to be compassionate and helpful, but in that moment anxiety or the desire to deliver an impressive speech interfered.

there is another pet peeve as a theater major there in the ’80s, it’s this: Educational theater should be just that. College should not operate like a Broadway or regional theater whose main goal is profit. Educational theater is for the training and preparation of the student actor. Its purpose is to give them the tools to be able to operate on a professional level. It’s why we pay tuition. There are and were theater majors who have never done a main stage production. How do you learn if you don’t do?

In late 1953 Corridan would tell actor Karl Malden, who was visiting Chelsea in preparation for his role as the Corridan-inspired priest in the film On the Waterfront: “I was born in this neighborhood [the West Side]. When I was growing up there were two ways to go. Become a priest or a hood.

Look,’ he said to us, ‘all these are the work of a favourite artist of mine, now dead. He was a strange person,

Almost every child will complain about their parents sometimes. It is natural, because when people stay together for a long time, they will start to have argument. But ignore about the unhappy time, our parents love us all the time. No matter what happen to us, they will stand by our sides. We should be grateful to them and try to understand them. 카톡☛ppt33☚ 〓 라인☛pxp32☚ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 Nowadays, more and more middle-aged people are suffering from insomnia, as life for the middle-aged is stressful indeed. For one thing, as they are the backbones of their companies, they have plenty of things to do at work. And they usually have to work overtime. For another, they have to take great responsibilities at home, for their aged parents need to be supported and their little children need to be brought up. That's why they don't have enough time to have a good rest. 네노마정처방,네노마정판매,네노마정구매,네노마정구입방법,네노마정구매방법,프릴리지처방,프릴리지판매,프릴리지구매,프릴리지구입방법,프릴리지구매방법 I have a dream. When I grow up, I want to be an actor. Being an actor can play many roles and experience different lifestyles. It is so cool. What’s more, I can make a lot of money and then travel around the world. I have passion in performance and have joined many dramas. I hope someday I can realize my dream. Here are several reasons why you should train yourself for success like a champion boxer! You don’t practice in the arena, that’s where your skills and your abilities are evaluated. This also means that you don’t practice solving problems and developing yourself when problems occur, you prepare yourself to face them long before you actually face them. Talent is good but training is even better. Back in college, one of my classmates in Political Science did not bring any textbook or notebook in our classes; he just listened and participated in discussions. What I didn’t understand was how he became a magna cum laude! Apparently, he was gifted with a great memory and analytical skills. In short, he was talented. If you are talented, you probably need less preparation and training time in facing life’s challenges. But for people who are endowed with talent, training and learning becomes even important. Avoid the lazy person’s maxim: “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” Why wait for your roof to leak in the rainy season when you can fix it right away. Training enables you to gain intuition and reflexes. Malcolm Glad well, in his book Outliers, said those artists, athletes and anyone who wants to be successful, need 10,000 hours of practice to become really great. With constant practice and training, you hone your body, your mind and your heart and gain the intuition and reflexes of a champion. Same thing is true in life.

The main goal of an audition is to prepare, execute what you have prepared and walk away without any regrets.

When you point out to him the palpable absurdity of some false action he has taken he is more than willing to cut it. But what can he do if his own feelings are not able to convince him? Who will guarantee that, having rid himself of one lie, another will not immediately take its place? A grain of truth must be planted under the falsehood, eventually to supplant it, as a child's second set of teeth pushes out the first.

The remembrance is a necessary preparation for the second exercise, in which you try to obtain an immediate identification with the Overself. Just as an actor identifies with the role he plays on the stage, you act think and live during the daily life “as if” you were the Overself. This exercise is not merely intellectual but also includes feeling and intuitive action. It is an act of creative imagination in which by turning directly to playing the part of the Overself you make it possible for its grace to come more and more into your life. (23-5-2)

If [...] inspiration does not turn up then neither you nor they have anything with which to fill in the blank spaces. You have long stretches of nervous let-down [...], complete artistic impotence, and naïve amateurish sort of acting.

To tell the truth, I was simply going to take on the external mannerisms of my acquaintance," admitted Paul frankly. "That was a great mistake," Tortsov replied. "At that point you went over to sheer imitation, which has nothing to do with creativeness

Whereas mechanical acting makes use of worked-out stencils to replace real feelings, over-acting takes the first general human conventions that come along and uses them without even sharpening or preparing them for the stage. What happened to you is understandable and excusable in a beginner. But be careful in the future, because amateurish over-acting grows into the worst kind of mechanical acting.

The bad part was that you flirted with the audience and did not play [...]. You see Shakespeare did not write [...] in order that a student by the name of [...] could show the audience her little foot from the stage or could flirt with her admirers. Shakespeare had a different end in view, one which remained foreign to you, and therefore unknown to us. Unfortunately, our art is frequently exploited for personal ends. You do it to show your beauty. Others do it to gain popularity or external success or to make a career. In our profession these are common phenomena and I hasten to restrain you from them.

If the man who plays the [...] has talent, he will prove to you by his acting that he is unconscious of any guilt.

You know now that our work on a play begins with the use of _if_ as a lever to lift us out of everyday life on to the plane of imagination.

Stage footlights have sent many tumbling, the prepared and unprepared, to suckle at the bosom of Madame Obscurité.

That’s why I call you performers. Not actors—performers. Because when it’s time to prepare, you work out every nuance of a role. When it’s time to step in front of the crowd, you reach out and pull them in with both hands. When it’s time to say your lines, you deliver them with skill and meaning. That’s performance. And there’s nothing phony about that. There’s nothing pretend about that. There’s no acting that will take the place of that.

so-called "secrets" are to the magician little more than are, to the actor, the wigs, grease-paints and other "make-up" with which he prepares himself for appearance before the public.

Even if we don't become an expert—always prepared, refined, and elegant like a veteran swordsman, virtuoso Noh actor, or tea master—we're fine, aren't we? What's wrong with toddling and limping along the path of life practicing zazen?