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Daily Inspiration Quote by Nastassja Kinski

"I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work"

About this Quote

Kinski is pitching ambition with a shrug, and that shrug is doing a lot of work. The line starts as a polite career wish - "I'd also like to do a play" - then quickly reveals a deeper craving: not novelty, but process. Film acting can fossilize into a single captured take, polished by editors and sealed forever. Theater, by contrast, is a living organism. You repeat, you fail in public, you adjust to the room, you earn the rhythm night after night. When she says she wants "constantly changing and refining a performance", she's not romanticizing the stage; she's naming its addictive feedback loop.

The subtext is self-correction. A screen persona, especially for an actress who came to prominence in an era that often treated women as images first and artists second, can become a cage. Theater offers a different kind of authorship: the performance belongs to the actor in real time, not to the camera, not to the cut. There's also a quiet bid for legitimacy here - the old hierarchy where stage work reads as "serious" craft, a way to be assessed on discipline rather than mystique.

That final turn - "even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work" - punctures the glamour. It's a small act of honesty, but also a strategic one: she frames labor as attraction, not burden. In a culture that expects actors to sell ease, Kinski leans into effort, signaling that what she wants now isn't more attention. It's more control.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Kinski, Nastassja. (2026, January 16). I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-also-like-to-do-a-play-ive-never-done-theater-104755/

Chicago Style
Kinski, Nastassja. "I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-also-like-to-do-a-play-ive-never-done-theater-104755/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-also-like-to-do-a-play-ive-never-done-theater-104755/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Nastassja Kinski (born January 24, 1959) is a Actress from Germany.

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