There's no doubt that I owe a lot to my training of stage acting.
Acting in a stage play is like working the evening shift in an office.
Everything in Wagner's work - the music, the acting, the staging - stemmed from the text. Everything served to interpret the text.
I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.
I started acting in junior high. I was in 'Guys and Dolls.' I was Stanley Kowalski. In my head, before coming to Hollywood, I thought, 'I can play anything.'
By the fourth or fifth take, I had gotten over the 'Oh my God, it's a Stanley Kubrick movie' and got around to doing a little bit of acting.
I was just a cheap little starlet hardly acting at all in a very mediocre film.
I lived what we call 'stealth' for a number of years. Even when I started acting in the industry, I didn't disclose. I didn't come out. My first job on 'Law & Order' was not a trans role.
I text with my dad during every 'Scandal' episode. We talk story lines, acting, and fashion.
I wouldn't mind producing a movie with a music storyline, but acting in one is too close to home.
I seem to be very attracted to strong female personalities in acting and music.
I didn't really get comfortable until I got to UCLA, and I had to take an acting course because I was studying theater arts.
Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.
The acting of the '50s is really stylized, so you're not really getting a lot of authentic, everyday characterization of people.
I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.
I've been acting for 25 years, living out of suitcases on theater tours or film locations.
Acting isn't a sure thing. We're not set to have jobs for the rest of lives, and fame is really fickle.
When I started acting, I thought if I got one or two jobs a year I'd be lucky. So yeah, my career has gone so much farther than I ever suspected it would, and as such I feel lucky for everything I get. I feel thankful and grateful.
Some of the joy in acting is switching it up: being able to do something that's different than what you've been doing.
I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time.
