Anytime I audition for something, it's always a question of whether or not the people I'm auditioning for understand I'm an improviser and I like to do that, and if they like that or if they just want someone who's going to do what's written.
Adam Pally
I've always been an improviser. I was one before I knew even what the word was... And acting, that I've been doing since I was 5.
Alan Arkin
Vince Vaughn is a master improviser.
Alan Tudyk
The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.
Ali Farahnakian
Baseball players practice, runners practice, so how can you practice being funny? You get up onstage. You train as an improviser, playing make-believe, using the vernacular of improvisation, saying 'yes and' to other people's ideas, making statements.
Coming out of Dallas and doing commercial work in Dallas - if you had improv background in Dallas, then you were instantly shot to the top of the list of commercial bookings because they loved improvisers because you could elevate the material.
Allison Tolman
As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I've done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.
Chris Gethard
When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.
Dave Brubeck
Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.
Derek Bailey
John Hughes loved improvisers.
Edie McClurg
We're lucky enough, especially in these 'Madagascar' films, to be working with some of the best people in the industry, who are not only great actors, but great comedians and improvisers and filmmakers. And they then become a part of creating their characters.
Eric Darnell
What has impressed me the most about the Italians whose tables we've sat at is that they are traditional cooks but also outrageously innovative. These people are wild improvisers.
Frances Mayes
As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.
Fred Frith
I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.
Harvey Pekar
My brother was an improviser. He's now a lobbyist, but he used to perform improv in the city when he was in high school, and one of the funniest guys I know to this day.
Jake Johnson
People know my background and for people who need an improviser, I'm one of the people they think to use if I'm appropriate for the part.
Jason Mantzoukas
As an improviser, my nature is to take a theme and constantly rework it.
Jason Moran
I'm always in awe of improvisers that make something out of complete nothing.
Kathryn Hahn
I felt that a cappella was the improv world with music, where it's very serious, and there are groups and competition, and some people become famous, and there's a language we speak from one improviser to another.
Kay Cannon
I realized that improvisers should probably always have time off. But musicians are always gigging and never have a chance to stop for a minute - unless something drastic occurs.
Keith Jarrett
A lot of improvisers mistakenly assume stand-up is awful, because there are a lot of stand-ups in the world that did not appeal to me. It was so easy to make a blanket statement when I was improvising only: 'Stand-up's terrible.' It's so ignorant and stupid to do that. But it's easy to do that. So that's where I came from.
As improvisers, we're acting as composers in front of people.
Steve Carell is the most spectacular ad-lib improviser ever. And just doing a scene with him, it's just one incredible topping himself on every take.
I can't imagine doing anything without being an improviser. I can't imagine trying to write or act or direct without what improvising offers you.
Instead of improvisers who want to be funny by themselves, we aim to try and make the scene itself as funny as possible. As a creator, I think that's someone you'd rather work with, whether it's a movie or a sitcom; that kind of methodology is good for collaboration. People want to be with those kinds of performers.
Understanding listening is an epiphany moment for every improviser. At least for me it was.
I guess I'm sort of spoiled because, most of the things that I get to do, people know that you're a good improviser, so they allow you at least one improv take, and for comedy, that's great.
I've never gotten hired for drama because I'm a good improviser. I don't think people who write drama scripts want you playing with them as much.
Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.
The day of the great jazz improviser who doesn't know how to read music is over.
Catherine O'Hara's one of the most amazing, wonderful actresses, but she's an amazing improviser. She really is.
I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.
Being in Los Angeles, I've had access to some of the best improvisers around and I really study them and what they do. It really it just about listening and what you can add to it.
An improv team would have eight guys and one woman; that was still pretty standard. If you were a woman improviser, it was actually kind of an advantage because, if you were halfway decent, you'd get a lot more stage time.
I think for anyone - male or female - in improv, the biggest thing to get over is the fear. I think every improviser has that.
I think not every improviser is a good stage actor. Certainly not every stage actor is a good improviser.
I'm an improviser. I came up doing improv at the U.C.B. Theater in New York for seven years. That's where I started, so improv is what I love.
You have to know composition to be a good improviser.
To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.
I think by now if people hire me, they know I'm going to improvise. I'm an improviser by trade.
I have a tough time with stand-up because I am an improviser. I can riff; I can do crowd work, so I don't prepare.
I think when you go in, with film or television, you want to tell this narrative. And with 'Joshy,' you want it to be grounded with moments - it's not like, 'Everyone be as funny as you can, quickly, at all times!' It's not like that. You have to pick the right improvisers.
Robert Altman was a very jovial guy and obviously a famed improviser and perhaps less effective in post-production, which is like the crystallising process. So I found myself at sea often with him because we'd have conversations about what music is, and in the end, I don't know how interested he was?
I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.
