Musicals Movie Quotes & Sayings

I'm very opinionated about movie musicals when they're adapted from live shows. You'll sit still for a three-minute song in a theater. But in movies, a glance from someone's eyes will tell you the whole story in a few seconds. — Stephen Sondheim

I'm doing 'Les Miserables,' the movie. I've done a lot of musicals and a lot of movies, and I know there are not a lot of people in Hollywood who have been down those two paths so I've been like, 'Come on, let's do a movie/musical.' — Hugh Jackman

We didn't have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn't visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway. — Kelli O'Hara

As the wildly favorable word of mouth spread, however, the box office receipts began to soar. First, fans of musicals came. Then the ever-growing cadre of Julie Andrews devotees. Finally, those longing for a happy ending - anywhere - began to turn out in droves. At which point the oddest thing of all happened: all these fans of the movie returned to see it again. And then once more. And then once again - until the phenomenon eventually resulted in a record-setting first release run of over four and a half years. — Tom Santopietro

The movie adaptations of stage musicals that I've seen, without exception, in my opinion don't work. A lot of people would disagree with me. — Stephen Sondheim

You have two kinds of shows on Broadway - revivals and the same kind of musicals over and over again, all spectacles. You get your tickets for 'The Lion King' a year in advance, and essentially a family comes as if to a picnic, and they pass on to their children the idea that that's what the theater is - a spectacular musical you see once a year, a stage version of a movie. It has nothing to do with theater at all. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture. — Stephen Sondheim

Musicals are good times. I live to do a musical, there's nothing like it, no experience like that in the movie business. You don't get to pull all those triggers at the same time doing anything else. Nothing pulls that from you. Dancing, acting and singing is like "Alright, I gotta fire on all cylinders right now" because that's what it requires. It's fun getting to exercise all those muscles. — Queen Latifah

I wasn't straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals. — Ethel Merman

Broadway purists may deplore the influx of movie-spinoff musicals in recent years, wishing someone would turn off the popcorn machine and let more imaginative brainstorms blow through. — James Wolcott

The thing about movie musicals is that there have been some brilliant ones, but when they're bad, they're really bad - big white elephants. — Rob Marshall

I was excited to get the opportunity to sing something in a movie 'cause I love musicals and I would love to be able to do more movie musicals, in the future. — Kate Mara

No, writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny, because I remember when the South Park movie came out, there were some critics that said, 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.' — Trey Parker