The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.

The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As read more

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As a grave matron would to dance with girls.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express read more

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan,
And hold the faithful mirror up to man.

Who teach the mind its proper face to scan,
And hold the faithful mirror up to man.

Working in the theatre has a lot in common with unemployment.

Working in the theatre has a lot in common with unemployment.

The play bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of
Hamlet, the character of the Prince of read more

The play bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of
Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail.

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
read more

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold--
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.