Meisner Quotes & Sayings
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Top Meisner Quotes
There was only one elective at my college for acting, but thank God for that elective because we had a great teacher who introduced me to the Meisner technique for acting. Once I read that book, I said, 'Wow, if I could do that and have that honest moment on stage, that would be amazing.' — Nestor Carbonell
Meisner technique was different than anything I'd ever experienced. It's a really great way to be accountable to your craft and to yourself, but also it takes that kind of focus and dedication to learn anything. — Mariska Hargitay
I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences. — Brad Dourif
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
The greatest piece of acting or music or sculpture or what-have-you always has its roots in the truth of human emotion. — Sanford Meisner
Your acting will not be good until it is only yours. That's true of music, acting, anything creative. You work until finally nobody is acting like you. — Sanford Meisner
The Gift of a New Day that talks about new motivation and a new outlook on life. God loves to make things new! Avoid — Audrey Meisner
Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning. — Sanford Meisner
I studied with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I was in the last class to study with him before he had his larynx removed, so I actually remember the sound of his voice. He was an incredible teacher. — Mary Steenburgen
Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed. — Elia Kazan
One can use standard principles and textbooks in educating people for law, medicine, architecture, chemistry or almost any other profession - but not for the theater. For, in most professions, every practitioner uses the same tools and techniques, while the actor's chief instrument is himself. And since no two persons are alike, no universal rule is applicable to any two actors in exactly the same way. — Sanford Meisner
As she reached back for the buckle, her fingers met Mr. Meisner's. She jumped. "I can do this ... Sir."
"Ah." He brushed aside her fingers. "I see you've at least remembered the sir."
"One always calls gentlemen that, just as you
"
With only a rustle of cloth to warn her, his teeth met in the lobe of her ear, sending a spark into her middle. Like the melt of winter snow, she felt heat pool in her lower body. Her fingers curled against her collarbone where her hands still rested either side of her neck.
"I'm not a gentleman, Faith. — Cari Silverwood
Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is, theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity. But today, most actors simply want to be famous. Well, being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition. — Sanford Meisner
You can't learn to act unless you're criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you'll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done. — Sanford Meisner
Listen with your gut, not your head. — Sanford Meisner
The text is your greatest enemy. — Sanford Meisner
That's very different, picking up the impulse instead of picking up the cue. — Sanford Meisner
There's no such thing as nothing. — Sanford Meisner
Every little moment has a meaning all its own. — Sanford Meisner
You know it's all right to be wrong, but it's not all right not to try. — Sanford Meisner
Acting is fun ... don't let that get around! — Sanford Meisner
Don't be an actor. Be a human being who works off what exists under imaginary circumstances. — Sanford Meisner
Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions. — Sanford Meisner
I was a student of Sanford Meisner for three years at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and I studied with Lee Strasburg for five years and became a member of the Actors Studio. What I studied came right from the horse's mouth. My students have a lot to learn from me, and I am so eager to share it. — Lainie Kazan
... 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. — Sanford Meisner
For the thousandth time, Faith wondered why this appealed to her. She detested letting men walk all over her, letting them think they were supreme beings. But when Mr. Meisner did all these diabolical things to her, her body fired up and wanted more. — Cari Silverwood
Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts. — Sanford Meisner
If you want to reach every person in the audience, it's not about being bigger, it's about going deeper. — Sanford Meisner
I studied technique for ten years, from age 7 to 17. I guess you could say I went more on the Stanislavski side than the Meisner side - there's always that wide divide among actors when it comes to technique. — Thomas Ian Nicholas
At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere, backstage, you will meet an older actor, someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes, about life in the theatre. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man!' — David Mamet
I've trained primarily in Meisner Technique, and I've done a little bit of Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade just to get my feet wet in the improv world because I think that's really important. But most of the teachers I've worked with, I've gotten, like, references through agents or managers, and they're sort of independent. — Scottie Thompson
Technique is something that you use if you need it. Otherwise, to hell with it. — Sanford Meisner
The foundation of acting is the reality of doing. — Sanford Meisner
I went to theater school, and if I spent time with one school of thought in this whole acting game, it's the Meisner approach of improvise-based acting. This does not mean that you improvise your acting, but that you focus on the other person. — Mackenzie Davis
The only way to deal with yourself as an actor is to follow the emotional truth of what you have to do under the imaginary circumstances. And as you develop you become confident. You come to believe in what you're doing and trust it because it's out of you. — Sanford Meisner
The American actor is very lucky ... Because so little is asked of him. — Sanford Meisner
I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character. — Robert Duvall
To be inventive, to have ideas, is an organic part of being talented. — Sanford Meisner
I don't really have a method or a technical process. I studied [Sanford] Meisner, and that's the thing that really works for me. That sort of instinctual, in the moment, what the other actors do, working off them and letting the story unfold, as opposed to having an idea of what the story should be. — Maria Bello
If you have the emotion, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it don't bother; just say your lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion. — Sanford Meisner
Find in yourself those human things which are universal. — Sanford Meisner
Every time I am reading actors I can pretty well tell which ones have studied with Meisner. It is because they are honest and simple and don't lay on complications that aren't necessary. — Arthur Miller
Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing. — Sanford Meisner
That which hinders your task is your task. — Sanford Meisner
The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting. — Sanford Meisner