Bebe Neuwirth Quotations

I've never danced professionally as a ballet dancer, but all of my training is ballet, and I am a Fosse dancer.

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

People make snap judgments about me that are frequently misguided.

People are at their happiest if they are true to themselves. I think that applies to their chosen profession, friends and relationships. It goes for your health too. If you are true to yourself, it seems to me everything should work out pretty well

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

When I was born, they put casts on my legs 'cause I had some kind of dysplasia or something. My legs were all messed up.

Certainly the life of a dancer is very difficult. The training is very hard and relentlessly grueling.

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

One of the things that's great about doing a show over and over again... is that you have to find ways to make it spontaneous, as though everything is happening for the first time... to continue to mine the material and find new things.

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

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

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

You have to be aware. Like, I'm not going to do any downhill skiing. It looks like a whole lot of fun, but I'm not going to risk breaking a leg. I want to be dancing the way I'm dancing now for 30 more years.

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

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

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

On the rare occasions I go to the gym, I prefer silence.

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

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

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.

It's a blessing as an artist to express myself - whether that be via dance, via song or via speech - in so many different ways.

My audition song is, and has been since 1977, 'I Love a Piano.

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

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

I'll always be a dancer first, ... Chicago.

My parents are such great people, ... They wanted me to do whatever it was that I loved doing.

I've seen some very beautiful drag queens.

The musical stuff I'd go up for was always funny, sexy, tough-as-nails, heart-of-gold characters.

Shakespeare feels very natural to me.

That was the aura of Cheers: It was special. It was more than TV; you could get people to guest on the show you couldn't normally get.

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

I have the greatest picture of Ted [Danson]. That was a big caper: There was one person [opening] the door with a butter knife and another person kicking the door in so I could get a photo. He's decapitated, but totally nude. And he's really well-endowed.

I know when I'm bad, I know when I'm good, and I know when I'm everything in between. I don't have any delusions of grandeur or delusions of failure. In terms of my work, I've got a pretty cold honest eye.

Kirstie [Alley] saved me, in a way. [At the time], I had a terrible marriage, and I stayed at her house. She was wonderful - just a kind, big-hearted, filthy girl. Somehow she could be vulgar without being vulgar.

I really loved Kelsey [Grammer]. It wasn't a romantic love, but there was something about him. It's very difficult to see someone you care about having a hard time.

I am a very complicated person.

I made jokes about kissing Murphy Brown. But if that's what cost me my job, my wife will probably say, "Hey asshole, I told you so."

Artists need to express.

I loved Jay Thomas as Eddie LeBec. But there was a point where they [thought] maybe we would live together, and I didn't like the idea of Carla being with somebody because that would make you feel like [you're] not part of the people in the bar.

This had better not be all about Lilith.

It's always hard for me not to dance when I'm on camera; I've had great times doing (TV and movies), but physically I feel very restricted.

It's an example of how well the shows were written and produced. The only way you knew Lilith was Jewish was that her son had a brit (ritual circumcision).

I really liked that my character was Jewish, yet she wasn't a stereotype,

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.

The Cheers' character Lilith is not based on the Jewish myth,

The laughs are earned by the really well fleshed out characters.