No matter what - rehearsed, under-rehearsed, over-rehearsed, doubts about rehearsing - the first gig is always the first gig, and you put on your little praying hat, batten down the hatch, and do what you do.
I wasn't creative enough to imagine my first novel becoming a film directed by Alexander Payne. Nor did I consider the possibility of seeing Hollywood stars moving through my personal version of Hanalei town: going to Tahiti Nui, rehearsing a scene in front of my cousin's cottages, driving the snaky roads.
I love rehearsing; it's the best part of the job.
An actor without an audience is rehearsing.
Performing, not rehearsing, is a dancer's raison d'etre, and I've been lucky to 'etre' in some extraordinary places - Cuba, Paris, Mongolia. In particular, a two-week stint in Greece leaps to mind. We danced in the Acropolis's Herodes Atticus amphitheater, once a venue for gladiator spectacles.
When I was a kid, I was into hardcore music. The scene in New York was tiny. Every person hanging out was in a band and played at the A7 Club. There was not much rehearsing or anything. Just doing.
When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.
From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record - all that happened, literally, within months.
I think for everyone it's good to have your own personal work on a character and a film before you even start rehearsing, to have an inner life.
I learn about history and religion and politics. It keeps me tuned in. If I hear something on the news, I'm like, 'Oh my God, this is what somebody is talking about in the play that I'm about to do in two hours.' The act itself - of rehearsing, failing, and still persisting and trying to create - keeps me curious, keeps me searching.
I like to do everything I can to avoid rehearsals, even while we're rehearsing.
