I can’t act!

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

I play a nobody in Japan.

On a good night, I get underwear, bras, and hotel-room keys thrown onstage… You start to think that you’re Tom Jones.

When I’m a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It’s somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

Acting is happy agony.

I’ve always loved the idea of playing Black Adam.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.

And I try to give the best bang for the buck. I love performing more than anything else.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

My mom always wanted me to be an actor. And I started going to theater and going on auditions young.

I get really motivated when I put on the India jersey. It is a responsibility, so I want to perform in the best way I can.

I like a drama.

A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it’s going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, ‚Wow, that movie‘ – or that show or whatever – ‚turned out really well.‘

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

‚Eastern Promises‘ is great.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

I’m not actually a very keen performer. I like putting shows together. I like putting events together. In fact, everything I do is about the conceptualizing and realization of a piece of work, whether it’s the recording or the performance side.

If you watch any good player, they’re using different parts of their body and working with instruments that respond to those movements. They’re moving in many dimensions at once.

In every movie I do have a dialogue.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

My old drama coach used to say, ‚Don’t just do something, stand there.‘ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

The joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That’s what I enjoy now.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.

Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

How you go about testing is just very different to just being in the situation of qualifying, having to go out, having to nail the lap.

I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

Bad performances can happen and are not that serious – even with new players. You can’t, say, sell him, get a new one.

I need to do well and show I’m a worthy driver in F1.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

Playing big, heroic characters with heart is always a lot of fun. I enjoy making movies like that, and a lot of people love to live vicariously through those characters.

I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

I love all of the arts. I love motion pictures. I love stage. I love theater.

When you come to my show, I want it to feel like opera, like a theatre.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it. You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.