Sometimes, when the material is really good, you put expectations on yourself to make it the best possible show. You're not just serving up the regular hash and doing your job and going home.
Peter DinklageRead
It's a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn't be treated that way. Maybe it's narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that's really helped me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Theater should be valued on its own, not just as a means to film and television.
In this quote, Peter Dinklage expresses his disappointment at how many actors view theater merely as a means to achieve success in film and television. He advocates for recognizing the intrinsic value of theater and emphasizes the importance of returning to it for personal growth and artistic integrity, suggesting that consistent engagement with theater can enhance an actor's craft.
Themes
TheaterActingArtFilmTelevision
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of live performance during an acting workshop.
More from Peter Dinklage
All quotes →Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
Peter DinklageRead
Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.
Peter DinklageRead
I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.
Peter DinklageRead
Dwarves are still the butt of jokes. It's one of the last bastions of acceptable prejudice.
Peter DinklageRead
Call me a midget, but just be real. I am all for correct terms, but please don't tiptoe around feelings. Don't be too careful, because that shuts you off from people.
Peter DinklageRead
Similar quotes
But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.
Stephen KingRead
Fiction, I believed, was the transmutation of experiential dross into linguistic gold. Fiction meant taking up whatever the world had abandoned by the road and making something beautiful out of it.
Jonathan FranzenRead
Poetry is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.
John DenhamRead
Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We can never rely on inspiration. When we most want it, it does not come.
George GershwinRead
Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.
Pat ConroyRead
In my acting, I have to identify with something in the character. The big tough boy on the side of right - that's me. Simple themes. Same me from the nuances. All I do is sell sincerity and I've been selling the hell out of that ever since I started.
John WayneRead