Sanford Meisner Quotes
-
That which hinders your task is your task.
→ -
The American actor is very lucky. Why? Because so little is asked of him.
→ -
The truth of your instincts is the root of your foundation.
→ -
There's no such thing as nothing.
→ -
I'll tell you this: you cannot escape the impact of emotion, whether it's in a big theater or a tiny one. If you have it, it inflates you — correction, 'inflates' is not a good word. If you have it, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it — don't bother; just say the lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion. It immediately exposes the fact that you ain't got it.
→ -
WHY is the most important word in an actor's vocabulary.
→ -
Acting is fun. Don't let that get around.
→ -
Acting is the ability to live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances
→ -
Your acting will not be good until it is only yours. That's true of music, acting, anything creative. You work until finally nobody is acting like you.
→ -
Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning.
→ -
Don't be an actor. Be a human being who works off what exists under imaginary circumstances.
→ -
Find in yourself those human things which are universal.
→ -
Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions.
→ -
You can't learn to act unless you're criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you'll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done.
→ -
The text is your greatest enemy.
→ -
Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing.
→ -
Acting can be fun. Don't let it get around.
→ -
Listen with your gut, not your head.
→ -
The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting.
→ -
That's very different, picking up the impulse instead of picking up the cue.
→ -
The greatest piece of acting or music or sculpture or what-have-you always has its roots in the truth of human emotion.
→ -
The only way to deal with yourself as an actor is to follow the emotional truth of what you have to do under the imaginary circumstances. And as you develop you become confident. You come to believe in what you're doing and trust it because it's out of you.
→ -
You know it's all right to be wrong, but it's not all right not to try.
→ -
The foundation of acting is the reality of doing.
→ -
Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.
→ -
Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts.
→ -
With a developed imagination there's no place you can't go.
→ -
Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is, theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity. But today, most actors simply want to be famous. Well, being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.
→ -
You don't pick up cues, you pick up impulses.
→ -
Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.
→
Related Authors
-
Viola Spolin Contributing writer -
Elia Kazan Producer -
Michael Chekhov Actor -
Sydney Pollack Film director -
Jerzy Grotowski Theatre Director -
David Mamet Playwright -
Larry Silverberg Author -
Anton Chekhov Physician -
Constantin Stanislavski Actor -
Marlon Brando Actor -
Al Pacino Film actor -
Anne Bogart Theatre Director -
Stella Adler Actress -
Uta Hagen Actress -
Lee Strasberg Film actor -
Robert Duvall Actor -
Elaine May Film director -
Michael Shurtleff Actor -
Harold Clurman Theatre Director -
Clifford Odets Playwright