Larry Moss Quotes & Sayings

Acting is a spiritual quest to touch human beings. — Larry Moss

Sanford Meisner taught actors never to look at the punctuation in a script. His belief was that it would force you into giving a particular line reading that might not be your own - meaning that you would get stuck in a certain way of saying it instead of following the impulses arising from your intention. — Larry Moss

I call this book The Intent to Live because great actors don't seem to be acting, they seem to be actually living. — Larry Moss

Acting represents all that human beings experience, and if you want it to be 'nice,' you will never be a serious communicator of the human experience. — Larry Moss

It's not enough to identify the Superobjective intellectually; you have to justify it, to find the emotional drive behind it. You need your own specific interpretation of the superobjective so that every time you think of it, it makes you emotional and drives you into action. — Larry Moss

The rules are what make us better. — Larry Moss

A good or great performance is like peeling an onion; in every scene you reveal another layer, something the audience hasn't seen until then. They stay involved because they are constantly learning about and discovering the character they are watching. They can't take you for granted and it keeps them hooked. — Larry Moss

Everything I'm teaching you about acting has one aim only: to fire you up emotionally and behaviorally so that you can give a vivid, involving, and memorable performance. — Larry Moss

You must create the character's internal life. What do I mean by internal life? I mean the thoughts, feelings, memories, and inner decisions that may not be spoken. When we look into the eyes of actors giving fully realized performances, we can see them thinking. We're interested in what they're experiencing that may never be spoken, that quality of nonverbal expression - which is as much a part of the characters as breathing and as real as what they say and do. This is their internal life. It helps us believe in the characters and care about them. — Larry Moss

That's what our work can do: we remind people that things can change, that wounds can heal, that people can be forgiven, and that closed hearts can open again. — Larry Moss

You can't play an emotional condition; you have an emotional condition, and because you have that condition, you try to overcome it with active doings (intentions). — Larry Moss