Constantin Stanislavski Quotes
All action in theatre must have inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real.
The life of a character should be an unbroken line of events and emotions, but a play only gives us a few moments on that line - we must create the rest to portray a convincing life.
The person you are is a thousand times more interesting than the best actor you could ever hope to be.
Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.
The actor must use his imagination to be able to answer all questions (when, where, why, how). Make the make-believer existence more definite.
What is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within myself.
Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.
When you're playing a character who's cruel, look for the places where he's kind. When you're playing a character who is unhappy, look for the places where he has a glint of merriment.
Of course, if you have thought up to now that an actor relies merely on inspiration you will have to change your mind. Talent without work is nothing more than raw unfinished material.
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.
When an actor is completely absorbed by some profoundly moving objective so that he throws his whole being passionately into its execution, he reaches a state we call inspiration.
In the given circumstances you must be rooted in the play. Do not depart from the play. Don't cut yourself off from your partner in the scene, or partners.
Fear your admirers! Learn in time to hear, understand, and love the cruel truth about yourselves!
In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born.
The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.
Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws.
You must be so thoroughly immersed in the given circumstances of the play, then you decide what it is at any given moment what that the actor wants.
Talent is nothing but a prolonged period of attention and a shortened period of mental assimilation.
At times of great stress it is especially necessary to achieve a complete freeing of the muscles
The character has to have some kind of arch. The character has to go through an event, and be changed by the human event.
In life we listen to other people. Listen with varying degrees of concentration and attention, right? Actors must learn to listen in a different way.
I was born an ordinary actor. I will die an ordinary actor. But I've persisted.
Don't go so deep in yourself that you no longer exist for your partner and for the character and for the play.
Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the creative secrets.
In talking about a genius, you would not say that he lies; he sees realities with different eyes from ours.
All art is autobiographical - if it's not, it's not going to quicken on-stage, and it's not going to come alive.
Gratuitous cruelty borders on the pathological, psychotic and that becomes uninteresting because there is no choice.
Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession do not run after distinctions and rewards but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
