Quote

Don’t use your conscious past. Use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don’t want you to be stuck with your own life. It’s too little.

Stella Adler

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Stella Adler
Age: 91 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 10
Died: 1992
Died: December 21
Actress
Drama Teacher
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Manhattan borough
New York City
Littles
Stuck
Little
Conscious
Life
Create
Imagination
Creative
Use
Past
Belongs
Character
Theatre

More quotes by Stella Adler

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Your curse is that you have chosen a form that requires endless study .... It means you have to read, you have to observe, you have to think, so that when you turn your imagination on, it has the fuel to do its job.
Stella Adler
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You act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors, because your souls are not used up by life.
Stella Adler
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Acting can be the healthiest profession in the world, because it allows you to do things you can't do in real life. It allows you to understand more than just what life provides you.
Stella Adler
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The actor must be full of passion. If he's too cool he's better off as the manager of a company, not someone who appears on the stage.
Stella Adler
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The theatre-acting, creating, interpreting - means total involvement, the totality of heart, mind and spirit.
Stella Adler
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Our heritage as actors goes back thousands of years, and we have to feel as comfortable in the clothes, and the language of Sophocles as we do in our sneakers.
Stella Adler
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Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
Stella Adler
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You'll never really be great unless you aim high.
Stella Adler
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Today the influences of your society pressure you to be successful before your time. They are pulling you down. They have pulled you down, you big, sweet, magnificent, young, potential artists. They have pulled you down so far that you are on the verge of destruction. Only you don't know it because you want to be a success
Stella Adler
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To grow: that is your deepest and truest need when you say, 'I want to be an actor.'
Stella Adler
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Your talent is in your choice.
Stella Adler
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It's not important to know who you are. It's important to know what you do, and then to do it like hercules!
Stella Adler
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Tell yourself that the world is outside, that it's not to be hidden from you, that you are going to thrust yourself forward and be relaxed in the world. You have chosen a field where you're going to be hurt to the blood. But to retreat from the pain is death
Stella Adler
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Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word.
Stella Adler
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The imagination is closer to the actor than real life-more agreeable, more comfortable.
Stella Adler
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An addict is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong.
Stella Adler
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Life in the theatre isn't necessarily when you get money from performing. It isn't when you sign a contract. It isn't even when you are in a play. It's when you understand it. If you understand it, you'll know why you want to act.
Stella Adler
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When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.
Stella Adler
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Happy children should not try to be artists. You have to be born with a broken heart and a sense of loneliness inside. I never had a happy moment as a child myself.
Stella Adler
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The play is not in the words, it’s in you!
Stella Adler