Thoughts and feelings are suspended in a vacuum unless they instigate and feed the selected actions, and it is the characters actions which reveal the character in the play.
Interpretation
Our thoughts and feelings serve little purpose unless they inspire our actions, which ultimately define who we are.
Uta Hagen emphasizes the importance of actions in defining character, suggesting that mere thoughts and feelings lack value without corresponding actions. In her perspective, it is through the choices we make and the actions we take that our true character is revealed, likening this process to the performances of characters in a play. Therefore, it is not enough to think or feel; we must act meaningfully to express our true selves.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
Theoretically, the actor ought to be more sound in mind and body than other people, since he learns to understand the psychological problems of human beings when putting his own passions, his loves, fears, and rages to work in the service of the characters he plays. He will learn to face himself, to hide nothing from himself- and to do so takes AN INSATIABLE CURIOSITY ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION
Once in awhile, there's stuff that makes me say, That's what theatre's about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn't happen very often.
If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.
There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.
There is not one piece of cosmic dust that is outside the scope of God's sovereign providence.
Men are not born saints with special gifts and privileges. They fight against the world, the flesh and the devil, and as they conquer, the spirit of Jesus begins to shine through with more clarity.
What seems to us but dim funeral tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.
Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!
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