2014 Flashback: A Year's Advice from the Stars

At the end of every "backstage" interview, BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge asks his guest, "What is the best bit of advice that you've been given that you still live by?" Below, we've rounded up all the sage responses from the stars of 2014!

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Patrick Stewart
"The principal of my drama school...said to me in my last months...'Patrick, you will never achieve success by insuring against failure'...He meant unless you risk everything, recklessly...if you take the chance of exposing that which is most personal and private, then you might possibly be successful, otherwise not."

Ian McKellen
"My drama school, I suppose, was the first jobs I had. And the first theatre I worked in was in the Midlands in the UK in Coventry...My very first performance I was in our production of MAN OF ALL SEASONS...And the man playing King Henry VIII had spied the ring I was wearing...and said 'Could I borrow it?' because he didn't have a ring to wear as the king. So I said, 'Fine.' And he went on, and when he came off, I thought, 'I want my ring back, because I want to go on the stage,' and I couldn't find it...And I heard on the teller, 'Ian McKellen, you're off.' I didn't know what that meant. Well, it meant I was off the stage, and I should be on the stage...And I just raced down the stairs at the end of the scene I should've been in...And effortlessly, of course, they'd covered for me and said all my lines, and the audience wouldn't have noticed any difference. My first performance ever as a professional actor, I was off. And Sheila Keith, wise bird, sat me down with a pint of beer and said, 'Ian, every actor is off once in his career. Aren't you lucky to have got it over with so soon?'"

Mandy Gonzalez
"When I left for New York, my mother told me this quote that she had read. And it's translated from Spanish, and in Spanish it's much more beautiful. But it's, 'Traveler, there is no trail. You blaze the trail as you go.' And for me, growing up, it was always like, 'Oh, this is what this person did, so I have to do that.'...And when I got Bette Midler, it was like, 'OK, now I'm on my own journey, my own path.'...Saying yes and having your journey begin is your journey."

Kelli O'Hara
"'Nobody is who you are. Nobody does what you do.' I used to get bogged down by someone singing my song in the audition room, so I'd switch mine up and then fall on my face because it wasn't what I'd planned. Or, just worrying too much about what someone else is doing and the path they've taken. And thinking, 'Why am I not in that same spot?' There's only you...Make decisions based on who you are and who you want to be. As an actor, I'm reminded of Tootsie and what's-his-face saying, 'I can be taller, I can be shorter'...Which is true -- we can be so many things. But the core of you is what drives every character you'll ever play. So if you lose that, then you're basically floating around and you have no roots and nothing to pull from. So just keep the core strong."

Steven Pasquale
"'Let your talent guide you,' is a great one that Harry Connick, Jr. actually gave to me -- I don't even know him that well - after an audition where I didn't get cast in that musical that he wrote. I remember he said, 'I loved your audition so much, you're just young for this. But man, you're really good at what you do. Just keep doing it, let your talent guide you. Don't get down on yourself.' And I've never forgotten that."

Kathleen Chalfant
"I was standing by for Elizabeth Franz in SISTER MARY...One Sunday, I was doing the play, and somebody I knew who was a painter and not in the theatre at all -- very intelligent person who was the widower of my friend...who'd just died -- watched the performance. And he said, 'You know, you're not acting out to the ends of your fingers.' And he was right. When the character's inside you and around you, it goes from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet and out to the ends of your arms. And it inhabits you in some way. And it's such a gift that's given to us, to those of us who do this. To be inhabited by these people. And to give them to other people. Because that's our job, and it's an important and honorable job, one that I think is an essential job. I think that art is essential to the human spirit, and not an amenity for the privileged. And we're lucky."

Will Swenson
"To chase down your happiness...My mom passed away a few years ago...She had cancer, so she knew she was going to pass, so she wrote us all letters before she died. And my stepdad handed them to us the first Christmas after she had died. So I got this letter, kind of from the grave, from my mom, and the main thing in it was that she just wished I would be happy and chase my happiness and do everything that I could to be happy. Not necessarily to be successful or rich but just happy. And I'm trying to live by that."

Fran Drescher
"Don't mix imagination with fear, it's a deadly cocktail. I have tons of people who always say, 'I think you said four sayings in that one sentence.' But they really help. They're really meaningful, and they've gotten me through some pretty serious things. But that applies to so many things. We start using our imagination, mixing it with fear, and it hurts us in the end. So, put a rubber band on [your arm] and pull it, and say, 'Stop that.' And you may have to do that 20 times a day until you re-program, but it does work."

Diane Paulus
[Points to Richard's chest, then her own.] "This...It's a gesture, but my teacher from graduate school, Anne Bogart -- I had a classic moment, graduating from Columbia University -- and I was saying to her, 'Oh my gosh, I could do this, and there's this fellowship that I could apply for, and I think maybe that's what I should do. Or, there's this show that...I want to do, THE DONKEY SHOW. I don't know what it is, but it's this crazy disco thing.' And she said, 'Follow your heart,' and she reached out and touched my heart. And I will never forget it...She said, 'Do this, and all your riches will lie there.'"

Audra McDonald
"A specific thing that Zoe Caldwell told me...'Don't try and make the audience like you. Try to make them understand you.' And that was revelatory for me. She said it to me after seeing me in MARIE CHRISTINE in a preview. She's like, 'The audience is not supposed to like Medea. They just need to understand her'...And that directs you towards the truth."

Reeve Carney
"'Take your time, son.' This was my friend Coco Montoya, he's a blues guitarist...but he was sort of Albert Collins's apprentice, and I got to study under him peripherally, playing in blues clubs in Los Angeles. And he took me under his wing a little bit...But that's what he used to say to me all the time, which you can apply to anything -- take your time. And Albert Collins used to say that to him."

Estelle Parsons
"The best piece of advice I've been given? I don't really take advice. I listen to myself. All my life, I've listened to what's inside me, and I think people have hated me for it, even in my childhood. But I listen to what's coming up in here. Don't you think so?"

Kyle Dean Massey
"If anything it would be something my parents told me. Something like, 'Do what you love, don't worry about making a living. As long as you do that, you'll be fine.' They always said that. Do what you like to do, and if you like it, you'll work hard at it, and eventually, you'll become successful. And they were totally right. And I believed them, that's what's crazy, I believed them."

John Rubinstein
"My acting teacher in Saint Bernard's in the 8th grade and 7th grade and 6th grade said, 'Whenever you're on a stage, pretend that there's a little man in the upper-left seat in the balcony, who is deaf and has an ear trumpet and he's listening through it. Make sure he hears every word you say.' And, by god, that's made a difference. I believe that I've actually gotten roles because I could be understood and heard, not that I was any good. But it does make a difference."

John Gallagher Jr.
"Have some patience and remember that everybody's got a different path. It's good to just kind of look around every once in a while and think, 'Wow, I'm here, I get to do this.' And I still do that, every job I get, you have to take a minute to look around and think, 'You know, I'm very, very lucky to be working.'"

Lucie Arnaz
"'We don't know what anything is for,' is a thing I actually live by right now. Because things can seem like a disaster and you go, 'No, no, that just happened. And now because that happened, you've got to leave and go there, but maybe while you're there, you'll meet -- you don't know what anything is for.' And I believe that we are on a path, that maybe we even chose... but like GPS, if you make a wrong turn, it goes, 'Recalculating,' and you have to go back again."

Betty Buckley
"You have to love this craft -- the craft of singing, the craft of acting, the craft of storytelling -- more than anything. And you have to commit yourself to learn more and more...I think it's really important to watch artists that you really admire...And singers, and dancers, and choreographers...And then find out how they learned to do that...Then study. And make that your joy. The craft is your joy. Because show business is very cyclical. One day they love you and the next day they won't take your calls. It doesn't matter what you accomplish, it continues on. And the other thing I think is really important is to be very interested in your own maturing and aging process. It's a good thing. And our culture is so terrified of maturity and aging...There's tremendous grace and the possibility of enormous wisdom. And if it weren't for the faults of the confusion of our culture, we could be so much easier on ourselves...in the world of show business, where you will always...be too young, too old, too fat, too thin, too pretty, not pretty enough...It's very hard to keep your own counsel. For me, meditation and prayer and brilliant psychologists have very much helped me. And I highly recommend all of that for everybody, because I think we live in a culture that is very confused. About most everything. And so within that, you can find a real sacred honor in being a storyteller, because we need storytellers that tell us the truth about humanity and the world around us...It's about making people remember who they really are, and making other human beings feel good about who they really are, despite all this craziness."

Gena Rowlands
"For an actor or an actress, if you're doing film, relax. Just relax. And do it...You can see everything on film so well. You can tell when a person is pressing too hard to trying to do something, when all you have to do is know your character, and be comfortable with it, and then relax, and do it."

Arthur Allan Seidelman
"I had the great privilege and pleasure of studying with, getting to know, and being a friend of a brilliant man named Sanford Meisner, and Sandy preached truth. He talked of the theatre as a temple, as a place of honesty, truth and dedication -- and he taught me to honor that. And I carry it with me all the time. To be very frank about what Sandy told me, he said, 'The theatre is temple, don't piss in the temple. Honor it. Treat it with love and truth.' And I try to keep that with me."