Acting is the ability to dream on cue.
Ralph RichardsonRead
Actors are the jockeys of literature. Others supply the horses, the plays, and we simply make them run.
Interpretation
Actors bring literary works to life, giving movement and emotion to the written word.
This quote by Ralph Richardson emphasizes the unique role of actors in the theatrical world. While playwrights and authors create the scripts and stories, it is the actors who interpret and perform these works, effectively giving them vitality and making them resonate with audiences. The comparison to jockeys suggests that actors guide the narrative, influencing how the story unfolds and how it is experienced by the audience.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a theater appreciation class to highlight the role of actors.
As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays-to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash.
Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper.
On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
I've seen my own blood and broken a few bones. I've been hit, which isn't an entirely bad thing, as at least you have a glimpse of the suffering endured by the people you are photographing. And in a sense, crumbling empires and war have been with me all my life.
The climate suits me, and London has the greatest serious music that you can hear any day of the week in the world - you think it's going to be Vienna or Paris or somewhere, but if you go to Vienna or Paris and say, 'Let's hear some good music', there isn't any.
Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
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