"I felt a little green, because Shakespeare writes the thought process within the text; it was tricky not to think of what to say and then say it, and instead just deliver the lines"
About this Quote
Green is a perfect word choice here: not ignorance, not incompetence, but that particular actorly dizziness you get when the material is smarter than your muscle memory. Neil Patrick Harris is talking about the culture shock of switching from contemporary screen acting-where the job is often to appear unperformed-to Shakespeare, where the language performs thought in real time. Shakespeare doesn’t just give you the destination of an emotion; he builds the staircase inside the line. The sentence itself enacts the dilemma: Harris’s instinct is to think, then speak, a modern, psychologically “natural” workflow. Shakespeare demands the opposite. You speak, and the thinking happens in the speaking.
That’s the subtext: he’s admitting that “naturalism” can be a kind of vanity, a belief that the actor’s private interiority is the main event. Shakespeare rewires that hierarchy. The text carries the mind at work, so the actor’s task is less invention than precision-timing, breath, emphasis, and momentum. “Just deliver the lines” sounds dismissive until you hear the craft inside it: delivery isn’t recitation; it’s trusting the line’s engineering enough to stop adding explanatory behavior on top.
Context matters, too. Harris came up as a hyper-visible pop-culture performer: sitcom cadence, awards-show hosting, the polished self-awareness of late-night entertainment. Shakespeare is a different contract with the audience, one where virtuosity isn’t hiding the seams but letting us watch language manufacture consciousness. His “green” is also a quiet flex: the hardest part isn’t feeling; it’s getting out of the way of a text that already knows how to think.
That’s the subtext: he’s admitting that “naturalism” can be a kind of vanity, a belief that the actor’s private interiority is the main event. Shakespeare rewires that hierarchy. The text carries the mind at work, so the actor’s task is less invention than precision-timing, breath, emphasis, and momentum. “Just deliver the lines” sounds dismissive until you hear the craft inside it: delivery isn’t recitation; it’s trusting the line’s engineering enough to stop adding explanatory behavior on top.
Context matters, too. Harris came up as a hyper-visible pop-culture performer: sitcom cadence, awards-show hosting, the polished self-awareness of late-night entertainment. Shakespeare is a different contract with the audience, one where virtuosity isn’t hiding the seams but letting us watch language manufacture consciousness. His “green” is also a quiet flex: the hardest part isn’t feeling; it’s getting out of the way of a text that already knows how to think.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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