Perfect is Boring
From Tina Fey’s BOSSYPANTS (via Giovanni A) . . . re her experience writing sketches for SNL:
“You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is BORING on live TV. What I learned about “bombing” as an improviser at Second City was that bombing is painful, but it doesn’t kill you. No matter how badly an improv set goes, you will still be physically alive when it’s over. What I learned about bombing as a writer at SNL is that you can’t be too worried about your “permanent record.” Yes, you’re going to write some sketches that you love and are proud of forever–your golden nuggets. But you’re also going to write some real shit nuggets. And unfortunately, some times the shit nuggets will make it onto the air. You can’t worry about it. As long as you know the difference, you can go back to planning for gold on Monday.”
You Can Choose Yourself
“How terrifying to surrender your life to being chosen all the time. Having to be chosen and re-chosen. Writing so that I can act became a way of having not more control over my future but not having to wait for permission. You can choose yourself.” ~ Brit Marling (ANOTHER EARTH) on why she decided to become a screenwriter in relation to her being an actress.
Moment Before
“There is always a moment before. The only time there isn’t a moment before is when it’s a birthing scene and you’re the fetus.” - Ellen W.
What it Means to Them
Here’s a great quote I came across from Albert Brooks on what makes a great actor, BUT for me it builds a great case against PUSHING!
“The actors who have always been the most affecting to me are those ones that allow me to interpret on my own. There are some actors that give you 100 percent, but they don’t let you get in. They’re working; you see them working. There are other actors that are instinctively laid-back. It’s really like a painting. I mean, why should any work from a modern artist sell for millions of dollars? It’s only because people are standing there and they’re thinking what this means to them. The same thing happens with a good actor.”
Gio A
The Germ of Every Other Person
“It always really bothers me when people imagine that ‘characters’ that don’t look like you, or have the same accent as you do, are far from you. The great actress Sybil Thorndike said, ‘I think we all have the germ of every other person inside of us.’ And I think we do.” ~ Meryl Streep
Rest Your Heart There
Excerpts from John Patrick Shanley Speech via Leo F.
“The craft and art of acting demands that you go beyond the quest of personal acceptance and make a statement about what it is to be a human being. The highest form of acting gives the audience a different kind of mirror the highest form of acting believes that humanity without apology is beautiful.
Listen! There are two worlds, one is fake, the other one keeps moving its location. As soon as you know anything you are in fake world and everything is dead. The other world has no name no definite shape no fixed rules and you are stepping over corpses and around broken glass and garbage all the time, and that’s where you’ll find God! Yes and God is real you can stop going back and forward on that one, God is real, he is in a aisle seat and he detests phony boloney bullshit bourgeois acting.
Every time you are on a stage, every time the camera rolls, every time you have an audition it’s a chance! Every scene in every class is a chance, for that matter every time you feel love or hate or jealousy or despair or magnificent rage in an injustice beyond your own concerns, every time you feel dead, every time you conserve the need of another, every time you are willing to sacrifice yourself to create something beautiful for those who come after you, every time you feel villainous or noble or heartbroken beyond mending its a chance to show up and live! Isn’t that why you guys really became actors, because you wanted to live not just phone it in? Isn’t that why you guys became actors, because you don’t want to live and die in a fake world, you don’t wanna live and die in a wax museum and miss the Q44? We all know what the last stop of the Q44 is, I’m in no hurry! I wanna live how about you?”
“…what a noble thing it is, while still alive to fling yourself beyond what you’re capable of, answer that ancient, pagan ache in your heart and justify our existence here on earth by creating one eternal moment of sheer transcendence.”
“If you do it you will remember the experience of the day you found your way home, and once you have that no one can ever take it away from you. You will always be able to rest your heart there and I will love you for it, we all will.”
Be Original
“You gotta be original, because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for?” – Bernadette Peters
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
“Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s not the end of the world, and in many ways, it’s the first step toward learning something and getting better at it. If you live your entire life never having failed at anything, it’s got to be a weirdly false existence in so many ways.” – Jon Hamm
