If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for a balance between the gentleness of life and the strength found in art.
Alan Rickmanβs quote highlights the contrast between the softness of human experience and the robust, often intense nature of artistic expression. It suggests that while life can be delicate and requires tenderness, art can embody strength and resilience, pointing to a potential harmony between these two opposing forces.
In practice
In an art lecture discussing the emotional impact of creativity.
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.
You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'
I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.
You have to really have the will to hang onto the first note as it is being played, and then really stay with it and take the flight, as it were, you know, for the duration of the piece.
All you can do is show people...You tell stories that are true and compelling.
I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.
Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.
A work can have in it a pent-up energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the subject it may represent.
The eye speaks with an eloquence and truthfulness surpassing speech. It is the window out of which the winged thoughts often fly unwittingly. It is the tiny magic mirror on whose crystal surface the moods of feeling fitfully play, like the sunlight and shadow on a still stream.
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