Bebe Neuwirth

“People make snap judgments about me that are frequently misguided.”

“Artists need to express.”

“Part of the success of the show is that the audience sees themselves in the characters, becomes the characters. The more they inhabit the characters, the more they see.”

“Creating a role is an interesting thing - each show or each situation is different.”

“I am just a plain Jew; I mean have no training.”

“I missed New York. Every break I had from the series, I'd fly back to the East Coast just to get back onstage.”

“I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.”

“If I'm not in shape, it feels like something is wrong. If I haven't been able to get to class for a while or I've been sick, I don't feel complete. It doesn't feel like the electricity is making its connections.”

“I've been very fortunate in my collaborators throughout my career.”

“I was not influenced by concerts as a child, but I was very strongly influenced by the ballets I saw.”

“I am a very complicated person.”

“I'm not a performer who will come on stage and tell you everything about my life. It's just not who I am.”

“I don't see myself as a diva at all.”

“When you're a dancer who is injured, you are at the bottom of the food chain. We are so replaceable.”

“I've seen some very beautiful drag queens.”

“I've been on stage since I was 7. That's where I'd rather be than anywhere else. Just because you can do a bunch of things doesn't mean you are a bunch of things. I can act. I can sing. But I am a dancer.”

“The first Broadway show I saw was when I was 11. I saw 'Hair.'”

“Anything that I do, I try to make it as good as I possibly can.”

“Stage and film are just two wildly different animals. Why compare the two?”

“In New York I was always offered the hot, sexy roles. But in L.A. I was offered the plain, dowdy roles. It says a lot about the difference between the coasts.”