By taking elements you observe in life, you can develop qualities in your acting life that you don't ordinarily call upon in your personal life.

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind.

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.

You have to do something. If you do something, you become somebody. Even a daffodil does something, has a profession. It gives off scent, professionally.

You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences.

You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique - when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously.

You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.

Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.

Happy children should not try to be artists. You have to be born with a broken heart and a sense of loneliness inside. I never had a happy moment as a child myself.

People always have secrets. It's just a matter of finding out what they are.

Music is pretty much the lifestyle, not the music itself. The lifestyle really pulled me off the street. Made me want to do something organized and positive.

Baathism in Iraq equals Nazism in Germany.

Everything now will prepare you for the next step. Don't run from adversity; lean into it with all your heart and God will make you a leader worth following.

My preparation is mainly just knowing the lines and getting in and knowing where your character is, knowing what it's about and having ideas that you can put in on the day.

Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

I remember asking my mom, "Do you think that I will ever have enough money to live outside of your house?" And she would be like, "You just never know."

When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.

Thanks to my father, I didn't have to face the tough side of life. Probably that's why I always chose love over money.

I was never NOT confident about doing scenes without my shirt - and now I'll find any excuse to take my shirt off!