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Daily Inspiration Quote by Berenice Bejo

"Sometimes we had to improvise. I hate to improvise because I felt like I couldn't find words"

About this Quote

Improvisation is supposed to be the actor's liberation; Berenice Bejo frames it as exposure. The line lands because it flips a cherished industry myth: that spontaneity automatically equals truth. For her, improvising isn't freedom from the script, it's freedom from protection. A written line is a handrail - a negotiated, authored promise that the right words exist somewhere. Take that away and you're left with the raw mechanics of selfhood: can I think fast enough, in the right language, with the right emotional pitch, while being watched?

The subtext is linguistic and psychological at once. "Couldn't find words" isn't just stage fright. It's the dread of being reduced to silence in a medium that treats speech as proof of competence and charisma. Coming from an actress who has worked across French and international productions, it also quietly nods to accent, idiom, and cultural code-switching - the way improvisation can punish anyone who doesn't feel fully at home in the dominant tongue. In that light, improv becomes less a creative tool than a test of belonging.

The intent reads as honest demystification: a reminder that performance isn't always about overflowing talent, but about managing constraints. It's also a soft defense of craft. Bejo is valuing the written word, not as a crutch, but as architecture - something that allows emotion to travel without forcing the actor to manufacture language under pressure. The tension is the point: authenticity can be engineered, and "natural" can be the most stressful pose of all.

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TopicMovie
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Bejo, Berenice. (n.d.). Sometimes we had to improvise. I hate to improvise because I felt like I couldn't find words. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-we-had-to-improvise-i-hate-to-improvise-39914/

Chicago Style
Bejo, Berenice. "Sometimes we had to improvise. I hate to improvise because I felt like I couldn't find words." FixQuotes. Accessed February 1, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-we-had-to-improvise-i-hate-to-improvise-39914/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Sometimes we had to improvise. I hate to improvise because I felt like I couldn't find words." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/sometimes-we-had-to-improvise-i-hate-to-improvise-39914/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.

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Berenice Bejo on Improvisation and the Fear of Silence
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About the Author

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Berenice Bejo (born July 7, 1976) is a Actress from Argentina.

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