Death ends a life, not a relationship.
Jack LemmonRead
If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. [You must] reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.
Interpretation
To truly connect with an audience, an actor must be emotionally open and vulnerable.
This quote by Jack Lemmon emphasizes the importance of emotional vulnerability in acting. An actor who seeks to satisfy both themselves and their audience must be willing to expose their innermost feelings and thoughts, allowing for a deep connection that transcends mere performance. By being emotionally 'stark naked,' an actor can convey authenticity and relatability, which are essential for creating impactful art that resonates with viewers.
In practice
This quote can be used in a workshop on acting techniques to encourage students to embrace vulnerability.
Death ends a life, not a relationship.
It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.
Dying is not a sin. Not living is.
Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.
I have lost someone I loved as a brother, as a closest friend, and a remarkable human being. We have also lost one of the best damn actors we'll ever see.
If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.
Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
When one wants to write, one writes. If one is condemned to write, one writes.
In documentary filmmaking, there's a tradition of telling stories about victims. We often do that from a very patronizing place, but mostly we do it from a very selfish place, to reassure ourselves that our lives are in sympathy and solidarity with the victims.
You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not.
Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.
The writing gets done away from the keyboard and away from the studio in my head, in solitude. And then I come in and hopefully have something, then I wrestle with sounds and picture all day long. But the ideas usually come from a more obscure place, like a conversation with a director, a still somebody shows you, or whatever.
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