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.
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way.
The only weapons I ever had were my cello and my baton.
I feel so entirely in my element with a full orchestra; even if my mortal enemies were marshalled before me, I could lead them, master them, surround them, or repulse them.
In one dancing saloon I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.
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