"I'm one of those actors who likes to do it wrong nine ways before I come to the tenth way, which is the way I think it should be"
About this Quote
Rogers is confessing a craft philosophy that sounds like a shrug but reads like a dare: he trusts the wrong take. In an industry that fetishizes “natural” talent and quick precision, he’s staking his credibility on something messier and more human - the willingness to look bad on the way to looking true.
The line works because it flips failure from embarrassment into method. “Wrong nine ways” isn’t self-deprecation so much as permission: permission to test, to push against the obvious choice, to discover the character’s shape by bumping into its walls. Actors are paid to be convincing; Rogers is admitting that conviction often arrives after you exhaust the cheap tricks. There’s a quiet defiance here against directors, time constraints, and the set’s unspoken hierarchy where speed equals competence. His subtext is, I won’t perform your idea of efficiency if it costs me the performance.
Context matters. Rogers came up in an era of tight television schedules and strong ensemble ecosystems (he’s forever associated with M*A*S*H), where the machine rewards actors who can land a scene fast. By framing experimentation as “doing it wrong,” he acknowledges the pressure while also resisting it: he’s building a case for process inside a medium that often doesn’t have patience for it.
Most telling is the phrasing “the way I think it should be.” It’s not “the right way.” It’s ownership. The tenth way is less a correct answer than a personal, hard-won truth - a reminder that good acting isn’t obedience; it’s investigation.
The line works because it flips failure from embarrassment into method. “Wrong nine ways” isn’t self-deprecation so much as permission: permission to test, to push against the obvious choice, to discover the character’s shape by bumping into its walls. Actors are paid to be convincing; Rogers is admitting that conviction often arrives after you exhaust the cheap tricks. There’s a quiet defiance here against directors, time constraints, and the set’s unspoken hierarchy where speed equals competence. His subtext is, I won’t perform your idea of efficiency if it costs me the performance.
Context matters. Rogers came up in an era of tight television schedules and strong ensemble ecosystems (he’s forever associated with M*A*S*H), where the machine rewards actors who can land a scene fast. By framing experimentation as “doing it wrong,” he acknowledges the pressure while also resisting it: he’s building a case for process inside a medium that often doesn’t have patience for it.
Most telling is the phrasing “the way I think it should be.” It’s not “the right way.” It’s ownership. The tenth way is less a correct answer than a personal, hard-won truth - a reminder that good acting isn’t obedience; it’s investigation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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