Constantin Stanislavski Quotes

The life of a character should be an unbroken line of events and emotions, but a play only gives us a few moments on that line - we must create the rest to portray a convincing life.

The person you are is a thousand times more interesting than the best actor you could ever hope to be.

All action in theatre must have inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real.

The actor must use his imagination to be able to answer all questions (when, where, why, how). Make the make-believer existence more definite.

The language of the body is the key that can unlock the soul.

Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part.

Play well, or play badly, but play truly.

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at the door.

What is important to me is not the truth outside myself, but the truth within myself.

Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.

Who am I? What will I be? Why am I here? Where am I going?

When you're playing a character who's cruel, look for the places where he's kind. When you're playing a character who is unhappy, look for the places where he has a glint of merriment.

Doubt is the enemy of creativeness.

When an actor is completely absorbed by some profoundly moving objective so that he throws his whole being passionately into its execution, he reaches a state we call inspiration.

When we are on stage, we are in the here and now.

In every physical action, unless it is purely mechanical, there is concealed some inner action, some feelings. This is how the two levels of life in a part are created, the inner and the outer. They are intertwined. A common purpose brings them together and reinforces the unbreakable bond.

You must be so thoroughly immersed in the given circumstances of the play, then you decide what it is at any given moment what that the actor wants.

The main difference between the art of the actor and all other arts is that every other [non-performing] artist may create whenever he is in the mood of inspiration. But the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration, and must know how to call it forth at the hour announced on the posters of the theatre. This is the chief secret of our art.

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.

You'll never see any two good actors approach a role in the same way.

In the language of an actor, to know is synonymous with to feel

The direct effect on our mind is achieved by the words, the text, the thought, which arouse consideration. Our will is directly affected by the super-objective, by other objectives, by a through line of action. Our feelings are directly worked upon by tempo-rhythm.

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.