I stay away from heavy-handed stuff, the good guy and the bad guy. It just doesn't interest me; all it does is create more fences between people, I think.
Sam ShepardRead
A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A good actor reveals the truth in a script, highlighting its strengths and shortcomings.
In this quote, Sam Shepard emphasizes the critical role that actors play in the artistic process of storytelling. They serve as a mirror to the writer's work, ensuring that the emotional truths of a performance resonate authentically with the audience. A skilled actor can expose the weaknesses in a script, prompting writers to examine their material more closely and improve its integrity.
Themes
ActingPerformanceTruthScriptDrama
In practice
Example use cases
During a theater class, a teacher might use this quote to illustrate the importance of an actor's role in validating a script.
More from Sam Shepard
All quotes →I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.
Sam ShepardRead
There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.
Sam ShepardRead
Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
Sam ShepardRead
On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
Sam ShepardRead
There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.
Sam ShepardRead
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