Thoughts and feelings are suspended in a vacuum unless they instigate and feed the selected actions, and it is the characters actions which reveal the character in the play.
Interpretation
Our thoughts and feelings serve little purpose unless they inspire our actions, which ultimately define who we are.
Uta Hagen emphasizes the importance of actions in defining character, suggesting that mere thoughts and feelings lack value without corresponding actions. In her perspective, it is through the choices we make and the actions we take that our true character is revealed, likening this process to the performances of characters in a play. Therefore, it is not enough to think or feel; we must act meaningfully to express our true selves.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
Theoretically, the actor ought to be more sound in mind and body than other people, since he learns to understand the psychological problems of human beings when putting his own passions, his loves, fears, and rages to work in the service of the characters he plays. He will learn to face himself, to hide nothing from himself- and to do so takes AN INSATIABLE CURIOSITY ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION
Once in awhile, there's stuff that makes me say, That's what theatre's about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn't happen very often.
If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.
I am not perfect. I just think that imperfections are beautiful.
I am persuaded that men think there is no God because they wish there were none. They find it hard to believe in God, and to go on in sin, so they try to get an easy conscience by denying his existence.
I am a part of all that I have met. Yet, experience is an arch wherethro gleams that untravl'd world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move.
What was taken by force, can only be restored by force.
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
It is a terrible thought, that nothing is ever forgotten; that not an oath is ever uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all times, in the wide spreading current of sound; that not a prayer is lisped, that its record is not to be found st
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