Uta Hagen Quotes

Uta Hagen — German Actress born on June 12, 1919, died on January 14, 2004

Uta Thyra Hagen was a German American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (who called her "a profoundly truthful actress"). Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theater. She twice won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999. She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio and authored best-selling acting texts, Respect for Acting, with Haskel Frankel, and A Challenge for the Actor. She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981... (wikipedia)

Once in awhile, 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.

I'm a bad liar; I don't know what to say backstage.

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.

We were not allowed to say, Screw, but we could say, Hump the hostess, because hump is in Shakespeare.

If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.