In rep you might play a father on Tuesday, a murderer on Wednesday and a butler in a farce at the Saturday matinee. It is the best training I know for the unpredictability of a shoot day, when the schedule changes before breakfast and the scene you prepared is now tomorrow’s.
Theatre taught me structure: how a scene breathes across two hours, where the audience needs to rest, how to find something new on the forty-first night without changing a single line.
The stage asks you to be alive every night. The camera asks you to be alive once — but it notices everything.
The adjustment for screen is size, not truth. Everything that was aimed at the back row goes behind the eyes. The thinking stays exactly as loud.
