James Lipton Educator Quotations

What I didn't know that by sticking to craft we would blow open some doors that I never saw opened before.

I criticize those critics. The reason being that they're doing one of the worst things that ever can be done to an actor, which is to say, Look, you do what we like you to do or else.

I did get Tom Hanks to say, Life is just a box of chocolates.

I was dealing with craft, and that's the surprising thing, the number of people who have literally broken down on our stage, because when you're talking about the thing that is most important to someone, they're liable to feel something strong.

I threw Spielberg out at 12:15 in the morning. Spielberg and the students. Coppola, out at 12:15. Billy Joel out at 12:15 in the morning.

It can be summed up in one sentence. Does this person have something to teach my students? No one has ever let us down.

I thought we would have at most an audience of 5,000 devotees because I made the decision to stick to craft, not to gossip, not to be interested in any of the juicy stuff that they talk about on other shows, but stick to the question of craft.

We are the only school in America, drama school in America that trains actors, writers and directors side by side for three years in a master's degree program, and we want them - to expose them to everything.

When it began I wrote this passionate letter to people I knew, studio members, of course, and other people with whom we have worked over the years and I said come and teach our students.

The studio is meant to be always a place where, first of all, they can be out of spotlight, and second, where they could work with a peer group on parts that they might not have played otherwise.

We teach them ballroom dancing, because for so much of their careers they will be partnering each other the way you and I are right now.

Not just project, but on stage, you have to begin at the beginning and end at the end, and you're out there, you can't stop for anything.

I'll tell you why, I don't invite the ones I don't like.

Because - Bobby Lewis said this once to us in class, the better you get, the less credit you'll get. Because the better you are, the more it looks like walking and talking and everybody thinks they can walk and talk.

They will take a role that scares them over a role that doesn't. That's another thing I like about actors.

The first people who responded were Arthur Penn and Sally Field and Dennis Hopper and Alec Baldwin and Paul Newman.