Uta Hagen was a German-born American actress and acting teacher. She won two Tony Awards for her performances on Broadway and was also nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1968 film The Subject Was Roses. She was also a highly influential acting teacher and wrote several books on the subject of acting.
What is the most famous quote by Uta Hagen ?
We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.
— Uta Hagen
What can you learn from Uta Hagen (Life Lessons)
- Uta Hagen taught the importance of hard work and dedication to the craft of acting. She believed that the actor should be prepared and in control of their performance at all times.
- Uta Hagen also emphasized the importance of being emotionally available and honest in order to create a believable performance.
- She encouraged actors to be open to experimentation and to explore different characters and styles in order to find their own unique voice.
The most memorable Uta Hagen quotes that will activate your desire to change
Following is a list of the best quotes, including various Uta Hagen inspirational quotes, and other famous sayings by Uta Hagen.
Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity;
easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting -- intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a grip on reality; the desire to communicate one's own experience and sensations, to make one's self heard and seen.
no work of art is ever finished, nothing is ever static, no performance is for keeps.
The actor must know that since he, himself, is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which the violinist makes music on his. Just because he doesn't look like a violin is no reason to assume his techniques should be thought of as less difficult.
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist.
For some strange reason, we believe that anyone who lived before we were born was in some peculiar way a different kind of human being from any we have come in contact with in our own lifetime. This concept must be changed; we must realize in our bones that almost everything in time and history has changed except the human being.
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.
We were not allowed to say, Screw, but we could say, Hump the hostess, because hump is in Shakespeare.
Dedicated quotes by Uta Hagen
I love going to the movies; I love watching good movie actors. They must know something I don't.
We had a relationship that lasted 44 years.
Herbert and I lived together 10 years before we were married. He always gave me a little heart for whatever anniversary.
The need to be loved and protected is at a peak when we feel abandoned and are particularly vulnerable to difficult circumstances.
Working with Brando was fun. It was like a tennis match. We played unbelievably well together.
I love playing Chekhov. That's the hardest; that's why I love it most.
Usually, someone who's in a show gets me a ticket.
I feel cornered. I can't walk out if I don't like it.
Once in a while, 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.
It must be noted that it is often the colleague or direct disciple of a new thinker who gets stuck in literal interpretations of the work, tending to freeze the new ideas and language into an inflexible, static condition.
Quotations by Uta Hagen that are versatile and innovative
One cannot demand of art that it pay you in any other way than in the satisfaction of the work itself.
All tedious research is worth one inspired moment.
I'm a bad liar; I don't know what to say backstage.
I won't go to England because they won't let my dog in.
If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.
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
I think, by and large, the level of acting is mediocre.
When I go to the theatre, I get so angry. I don't go.
The knowledge that every day there is something more to learn, something higher to reach for, something new to make for others, makes each day infinitely precious
Marlon was so sensitive, you thought the poor guy just had a bad education.
I have disassociated myself from that book.
Keep pace with the present. Take a trip to the moon. envision the future.
Awards don't really mean much.
Maybe the one I enjoyed playing most was A Month in the Country.