I always say it takes three weeks to know a character and three months to own it. And I think that's probably true of every theater artist. If you really want to see a performance of the show, wait three months.
Interpretation
Understanding and embodying a character in acting requires time and dedication.
This quote emphasizes the importance of time in truly understanding and internalizing a character for a performance. Brian Stokes Mitchell suggests that while initial impressions can be formed in about three weeks, it takes much longer—around three months—to deeply connect with and authentically portray a character, highlighting the dedication and effort required in the art of acting.
In practice
In a workshop on acting techniques, this quote can be shared to encourage actors to commit to their roles.
That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.
There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.
One of the interesting things an artist does is they keep rediscovering things, whether it's a jazz piece or a role you've done for 3,000 performances or a song you're singing for the 3,000th time. My job is to find that spark that keeps it fresh and alive.
The older I get, I realize, 'Man, I'm a very rare bird,' and that's not because of necessarily my talent or ability; it so much depends on luck and just the grace of the universe.
There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.
Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions.
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
My directors of photography light my films, but the colours of the sets, furnishings, clothes, hairstyles - that's me. Everything that's in front of the camera, I bring you.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.