Michael Shurtleff Quotes
- To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted.
- The moral: Don't settle for anything less than the biggest dream for your future Fight to make the dream come true.
- That's why there's so little romance in our world now: everyone thinks romance is weak.
- Humor is an attitude, a survivor’s way of looking at life. It’s not about telling jokes.
- Most actors make themselves unhappy by searching for their sanity, by insisting on their normalcy; it's a grave mistake.
- The life of an actor is a bit easier to take if you admit you're bonkers.
- No matter how much we know about the other person, there is always something going on in that other heart and that other head that…
- The actor needs to find out what the basic fight is in every character in every scene.
- Every scene is a love scene. The actor should ask the question: 'Where is the love?'
- Everyone thinks romance is weak. Yet romance is everyone's secret dream-it's why we're alive.
- Competition is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get along. And they…
- Conflict is what creates drama. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.
- Creating relationship is the heart of acting. It is basic. It is essential.
- Listening is not merely hearing. Listening is reacting. Listening is being affected by what you hear. Listening is active.
- Whatever you decide is your motivation in the scene, the opposite of that is also true and should be in it.
- Humor [in a scene] is not jokes. It is that attitude toward being alive without which you would long ago have jumped off the 59th…
- Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before.
- The first step to a better audition is to give up character and use yourself.
- Competition [in a scene] is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get…
- Take nothing for granted. Make an emotional discovery as often as you can find one in every scene. Ask yourself: What is new?