You've got to have a sense of different audiences. I'm a kind of performer manque - I come from a long line of failed actors!
Earlier on in my career I felt that I had to hide behind a lot of different masks, and showboat ways of performing. Now, that's a lie. The less I have to hide, the less I have to act.
Whenever I perform, people get me because I'm talking about things that people can identify with and relate to. I'm not just up there doing jokey, jokey, joke.
As an actor, I've always been interested in making sure I can perform the role and the lines in the way the writer intended.
When I watch myself on camera, in any capacity - being interviewed, performing, 20 years ago or yesterday - there's a part of me that really doesn't grasp that it's me.
If I can't sing them myself, there's nothing better than writing songs for other people and watching them be performed. It's kind of more thrilling than doing it yourself.
As part of the process by which you hire me, you hire me. You just don't hire an hour of me to do a performance.
I think the most challenging part of being a performer is just making sure that people know that when you get up there every night, it's unique and that you care.
When you're shooting a network television show it inevitably starts airing a few episodes in, and depending on the ratings and the response from the public, you find yourself tweaking your performance or the scripts go in a different direction.
It is not a mystical thing, however, it is obvious and practical and I think that what the performer does is to try to get to that point with every choice you make from the phrasing in a tune to the choice of tunes.
The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If you're not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, you're kind of stuck.
Sometimes, the most daunting thing about performing is making eye contact with your audience, so just look above them and at the corners of the room. Soon, you'll totally forget they're there.
I am thrilled beyond words that The Academy has recognized my performance in Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave,' and I am deeply proud to be in the company of my fellow nominees.
I've got a very behind-the-scenes personality. I don't know how I became a performer. I like to stay discreet, out of the public eye, very low-key.
I seem to have a soft spot in my heart for Australia and Australian actors. After having worked with one in 'Cinderella' and a multitude of them in 'Cats,' I've wanted the opportunity to actually perform 'down under.'
If the works of Jesus were so much more wonderful than man could perform as to deserve to be called miracles, was it not nonsense to caution his disciples so strongly against being deluded by the works of others?
At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.
When I met my wife, I was a working comic, so the first week we went out, she saw me perform, and it was very clear what I do.
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone.. the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
Making fun of guys to get them to perform and prove themselves, that's always going to exist. But we have to equally celebrate them and empower them.
