I love performing on stage the most. It's getting that instant reaction from a live audience. There are no boundaries, you can take your character as far as you want to, you can be the craziest person ever.
I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it's a painful, difficult search within.
I always assumed I'd spend my life happily performing in artsy-fartsy little theaters.
When you see young players coming into the squad and pushing you, no matter what age you are, you have to react. You have to worry about yourself and perform as well as you can. If you end up looking around at others, wondering who's performing better, you take your eye off the ball.
I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.
If I'm performing in the United States, I'm able to speak Spanglish, and the crowd comprehends. If I'm in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, then I'm completely Spanish. I feel like a New Yorker that represents all Latinos.
I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.
Onstage I do all the stuff I'd never do in real life, like lashing out at people who make me mad or freaking out in a long bank lineup. Performing allows me to fulfill all the sicko fantasies I've ever had.
I think that everybody's worked on shows where you feel like maybe a divide has happened between the talent and the crew. Those are the hardest jobs to do your best in, because as you're performing, you're aware that the people around you, because they haven't been afforded the respect that they deserve, they're not as invested.
I went to Salford Tech. They did a two-year performing arts course. I went there singing and dancing - I had a terrible time. I turned up in green dungarees and German power boots. I was into prog rock at the time - Gong and Hawkwind - and I was clumping around.
When Elvis was performing, you just tried to figure out a way to get there. I think he set all the records and anyone that has ever had the good fortune to see him, you know what it's like to try to get in to see Elvis. It was impossible, practically.
Writing is a kind of performing art, and I can't sit down to write unless I'm dressed. I don't mean dressed in a suit, but dressed well and comfortably and I have to be shaved and bathed.
'Star Trek' is a 'Wagon Train' concept - built around characters who travel to worlds 'similar' to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which become our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser 'S.S. Yorktown,' performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps create our format.
I'm coming up on 30. There are other things that I want to pursue outside of just performing.
I'm tired of being in a band, but I do want to continue making records and performing, at least a little bit. Making the records isn't always fun. It's fun to be finished with them. Making beautiful things can be quite painful.
I'm not into just one thing; I always felt like I had to have my hand in everything revolving around what I do, whether it's directing videos, making beats, making music, performing.
If there's anyone out there that looks a bit like me, or just feels a little bit out of place just trying to get into performing, you are beautiful; embrace it. You are intelligent; embrace it. You are powerful; embrace it.
One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening.
For example, I wouldn't hesitate to sit somebody down if he wasn't performing, even if he was the No. 1 player in the world. I've been sat down before.
I explain to athletes, you're supposed to be a well-oiled machine. You're supposed to be in better shape than the people watching you. You're supposed to be an unbelievable specimen of a human being. You have to treat your body different while you're performing.
I'd faced a lot of rejection from labels and the industry, and it was getting hard to keep believing in myself. But something wouldn't let me - inside - I had this voice that was relentlessly hopeful, and honestly, I just loved performing and writing too much to ever really quit.
But I just love that music scene so much, and I enjoy really being around those artists and watching them even more than I do performing, because they are a whole group of people that do it because they love music.
Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.
I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.
I ended up performing on a full time basis and I never got to Julliard at all.
I remember once having to stop performing when I thought an elderly man a few rows back from the front was actually going to die because he was laughing so hard.
My first professional job was actually at a place called Opryland U.S.A., which no longer exists, but I've been performing since I was a kid.
I started performing at school and drama classes when I was 7.
I'm also performing regularly in Southern California with two bands. As a solo artist doing acoustic sets and a member of the Jenerators, my rock n roll band that has been around for a long time now.
I tend to stay up late, not because I'm partying but because it's the only time of the day when I'm alone and don't have to be performing.
I would really, really, really like to be a legend like Madonna. Madonna knows what to do next, and when she's performing, the audience is just in awe of her.
In the summer of 1791, I gave up my concern in the 'New Annual Register,' the historical part of which I had written for seven years, and abdicated, I hope forever, the task of performing a literary labour, the nature of which should be dictated by anything but the promptings of my own mind.
Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people.
I hated the ballet, but I liked performing. I did 20 shows, and I couldn't get the smile off my face.
You put a song on the record or on tape and you stop singing it. You just don't sit around and sing it anymore unless you're performing. That's kind of sad.
The thing that attracted me to acting the most was I always felt quite unsure or insecure as a kid, and for some reason, when I got to perform these lines and characters, I felt safe. There was this confidence and excitement from performing that I loved.