Michael Shurtleff Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

The life of an actor is a bit easier to take if you admit you're bonkers.

Michael Shurtleff
That's why there's so little romance in our world now: everyone thinks romance is weak.

Michael Shurtleff
Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before.

Michael Shurtleff
To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted.

Michael Shurtleff
Often actors ask me if I think they should go on trying to be an actor.
I have the same answer for everyone who asks: If you have a choice and could reasonably be happy doing something else, by all means go at once and do something else.
Acting or writing or directing in the theatre or television or screen is only for the irrecoverably diseased, those who are so smitten with the need that there is no choice.

Michael Shurtleff
An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. We are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don't realize they must go looking for it. Plays are written about...the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.

Michael Shurtleff
Whatever you decide is your motivation in the scene, the opposite of that is also true and should be in it.

Michael Shurtleff
The moral: Don't settle for anything less than the biggest dream for your future Fight to make the dream come true.

Michael Shurtleff
Creating relationship is the heart of acting. It is basic. It is essential.

Michael Shurtleff
Take nothing for granted. Make an emotional discovery as often as you can find one in every scene. Ask yourself: What is new?

Michael Shurtleff
Every scene is a love scene. The actor should ask the question: 'Where is the love?'

Michael Shurtleff
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 we don't know but can only ponder. And no matter how we explain ourselves to someone else, no matter how open we are, there is always still something inexplicable, something hidden and unknown in us, too.

Michael Shurtleff
If we lived for reality, we'd be dead, every last one of us. Only dreams keep us going.

Michael Shurtleff
The actor needs to find out what the basic fight is in every character in every scene.

Michael Shurtleff
Actors, who should pride themselves on their singularity, are forever trying to be someone else. It isn't necessary for you, the actor, to like yourself— self-love isn't easy to come by for most of us— but you must learn to trust who you are. There is no one else like you.

Michael Shurtleff