Quotessence
Home / Authors / Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner

Sanford Meisner Quotes

Actor

Filter quotes by topic

AllActingActorsTheatreIfsCircumstancesEmotionImaginaryAbilityAudienceGivenHumansImpulseRootsThinkingWayAuditionsBest ActingCallingFoundationFun

Famous Sanford Meisner Quotes

“... as a convention, you get up and walk to the window to make the audience believe that you're looking out. It's for the audience, not for you! And what it means to you is something emotional [...] If you went to the Actors Studio you'd spend six months seeing the snow before you could say, 'Look at the snow.' This takes a terrible burden away from the actor, who thinks he's got to see the woods and the snow. 'Give me my gun! I see a rabbit! Give me my gun!' " Meisner sounds thrilled at the possibility of a hunt. "That happens when you're still sitting there reading. Then when they put in the scenery you move to the window. Isn't that simple? How simple it is to solve the problem of seeing things when you know that it's all in you emotionally, and that walking to the window is only a convention.”

ActingEmotionImpulseSymbolismConventionTruthfullness
Book:Sanford Meisner on Acting
Create image

“I'll tell you this: you cannot escape the impact of emotion, whether it's in a big theater or a tiny one. If you have it, it inflates you — correction, 'inflates' is not a good word. If you have it, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it — don't bother; just say the lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion. It immediately exposes the fact that you ain't got it.”

IfsLinesActingEmotionAudienceCapableTheatreBotherFakeDoing You
Author:Sanford Meisner
Create image