I remember one day sitting at the pool and suddenly the tears were streaming down my cheeks. Why was I so unhappy? I had success. I had security. But it wasn't enough. I was exploding inside.
Ingrid BergmanRead
On acting to daughter Isabella Rossellini: Keep it simple. Make a blank face and the music and the story will fill it in.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of performance lies in simplicity, allowing the story to unfold naturally.
In this quote, Ingrid Bergman emphasizes the importance of simplicity in acting. By advising her daughter to maintain a blank expression, she suggests that the true depth of emotion and story will be conveyed through the music and narrative, rather than through overacting or complex expressions. This approach encourages authenticity and allows the audience to connect more deeply with the performance.
Themes
SimplicityActingPerformanceEmotionStorytelling
In practice
Example use cases
During a theater workshop, one could share this quote to emphasize the value of simplicity in performance.
More from Ingrid Bergman
All quotes →The best way to keep young is to keep going in whatever it is that keeps you going. With me that's work, and a lot of it. And when a job is finished, relax and have fun.
Ingrid BergmanRead
You must train your intuition - you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide.
Ingrid BergmanRead
Be yourself. The world worships the original.
Ingrid BergmanRead
I won't do this movie because I don't believe the love story," she told Selznick. "The heroine is an intellectual woman, and an intellectual woman simply can't fall in love so deeply.
Ingrid BergmanRead
One is never too old for romance.
Ingrid BergmanRead
Similar quotes
Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.
Alice MunroRead
The role of the artist is to not look away.
Akira KurosawaRead
First you study photography, then you practice photography, then you serve photography, and finally one becomes photography.
Ralph GibsonRead
What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.
Alice WalkerRead
In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.
Toni MorrisonRead
Prose is something that is persistent in staying in one place long enough to not only zero in on the dramatic effect of something that might have happened, or something that might have been seen, but also in watching how it played out and thinking about the cause and the effect.
Tracy K. SmithRead