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I try to find out what there is in the character that in a way, you can't put into words. If I could put it into words, then it wouldn't be a performance. And if I do put it into words, as I play it, I start to get boxed in by those words.

Alan Alda

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Alan Alda
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: January 28
Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Podcaster
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Director
Television Presenter
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Alphonso Joseph D’Abruzzo
Start
Words
Character
Find
Play
Boxed
Trying
Performance
Way
Performances
Wouldn

More quotes by Alan Alda

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There are two things that I get a lot of pleasure from in my life, and that is, doing what I know how to do well - that really makes me happy. The other one, and probably an equal pleasure, is finding out how I can be helpful and then really being helpful.
Alan Alda
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I was a child, and my mother was psychotic. She loved me, but I didn't really feel I had a mother. And when you live with somebody who is paranoid and thinks you're trying to kill them all the time, you tend to feel a little betrayed.
Alan Alda
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Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.
Alan Alda
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I was always interested in figuring things out. I'd do experiments, like combining things I found around the house to see what would happen if I put them together.
Alan Alda
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As I am becoming older, the only thing that speeds up is time.
Alan Alda
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It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.
Alan Alda
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Life is great-I wouldn't know what I'd do without it.
Alan Alda
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When your kids turn 13, an alien being invades their bodies and doesn't leave until they're 20.
Alan Alda
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Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don't ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself.
Alan Alda
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For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn't go back.
Alan Alda
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The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.
Alan Alda
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I've been nominated twice before as actor in a leading part. Now I'm nominated as actor in a supporting part. If I don't win, I'll just wait until I'm nominated for being in the theater during the show. Do they have one like that?
Alan Alda
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I don't really worry about the size of the part much any more. It's nice to have more time to work on the character, and to have big scenes to play. But if there's something playable there, and if it's interesting to do, then that's nice.
Alan Alda
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Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.
Alan Alda
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Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan Alda
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My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that.
Alan Alda
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It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.
Alan Alda
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I've never tried to manipulate my image.
Alan Alda
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Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been.
Alan Alda
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Jean Paul Sartre says in No Exit that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth.
Alan Alda