Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.
Interpretation
A director in theater has a more direct influence on the live performance compared to film.
In this quote, Philip Seymour Hoffman emphasizes the unique responsibilities of a theater director. He suggests that while both theater and film directors play crucial roles in storytelling, the immediacy and live nature of theater require a director to be more actively involved in shaping the performance as it unfolds, highlighting the dynamic relationship between the director and the performers on stage.
In practice
In a lecture about directing, this quote beautifully illustrates the challenges of live theater.
I think I would have drank myself to death, literally, if I didn't just stop, once and for all when I did. I am not ever going to preach to anyone about drugs or drinking. But, for me, when they were around, I had no self control.
Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.
I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.
I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things.
I didn't have any idea that I would be able to have a career in film.
There’s a period of time in your life when I kind of look back, and I’m like, was I happy, or was I just not aware?
I feel that buildings often have a workaday aspect that you see during the daylight hours, and a more resplendent side that emerges after dark.
That’s one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing’s real, it just lives. All the attendant hoopla about it, the success over it or the critical rejection—none of that really matters. In the end, the thing will survive or not on its own merits. Not that immortality via art is any big deal. Truffaut died, and we all felt awful about it, and there were the appropriate eulogies, and his wonderful films live on. But it’s not much help to Truffaut.
Writing is a demanding profession and a selfish one. And because it is selfish and demanding, because it is compulsive and exacting, I didn't embrace it. I succumbed to it.
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
Drag, at its core, is about honoring yourself and your own unique way of being a gendered, queer person. Your own unique way of using fashion to express yourself.
Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me.
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