In a rehearsal room, your real resource as an actor aren't the things around you; your resources are your imagination and your director and the other actors. In those close quarters, your imagination and your skills are what you turn to.
Interpretation
An actor's true resources lie in their imagination and teamwork rather than physical props.
This quote emphasizes that in the art of acting, the most valuable tools an actor possesses are their imagination, the guidance of their director, and the collaborative efforts of fellow actors. In the intimate and confined environment of a rehearsal space, it is these mental and social resources that allow actors to create believable and compelling performances, rather than relying solely on external materials or settings.
In practice
In a workshop for aspiring actors, this quote can encourage them to focus on their imaginative capabilities.
Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.
The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.
I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.
I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.
Black and white might be sufficient. But why deprive yourself of color.
I'm more interested in melodic things. I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot.
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