A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.
Mike NicholsRead
I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of creating a safe environment for creative expression in acting.
Mike Nichols highlights the role of a director or artist in facilitating deep emotional expression in actors. By using the metaphor of 'opening a vein', he conveys the idea that true artistry involves vulnerability, and it is crucial for the director to ensure that this process occurs in a safe and supportive atmosphere, thereby fostering genuine performances.
Themes
ActingVulnerabilityArtistryCreativitySafety
In practice
Example use cases
During a theater workshop, a director could quote this to encourage actors to connect with their emotions.
More from Mike Nichols
All quotes →There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love.
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You could say that it's in talking movies that inner life begins to appear. You can see things happen to the faces of people that were neither planned nor rehearsed.
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The thing about being an outsider... is that it teaches you to hear what people are thinking because you're constantly looking for the people who just don't give a damn.
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I've learned that many of the worst things lead to the best things, that no great thing is achieved without a couple of bad, bad things on the way to them, and that the bad things that happen to you bring, in some cases, the good things.
Mike NicholsRead
Plays, especially great plays, yield their secrets over a long period of time. You can't read it three times and say, 'OK, I got it. I know what's happening.'
Mike NicholsRead
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