Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to.
Martin LandauRead
You can't perish because of your own feelings; you have to embrace those things as an actor because it's part of your palette.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embracing one's feelings is essential for creative expression, much like an artist using every color in their palette.
In this quote, Martin Landau emphasizes the importance of accepting and integrating one's feelings into the creative process. He compares feelings to colors on an artist's palette, suggesting that every emotional experience contributes to the richness and depth of artistic expression, ultimately enhancing the work produced by the creator.
Themes
FeelingsArtCreativityExpressionPalette
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal growth in the arts, this quote can highlight the importance of emotional authenticity.
More from Martin Landau
All quotes βI run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.
Martin LandauRead
I studied with Strasberg, Elia Kazan. They raised the bar. They weren't easy to please, and they made you achieve the best you could do. That's what a teacher does: he infuses you with passion for something.
Martin LandauRead
As a Jew, there's a need to keep that atrocity alive. There were Catholics and gypsies and homosexuals who died in the Holocaust, too. It's amazing that people allowed this slaughter to take place. There's a need to make these films and reiterate it happened.
Martin LandauRead
I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.
Martin LandauRead
People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.
Martin LandauRead
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