"Acting is the ability to dream on cue"

“Acting is the ability to dream on cue” is a saying that has been printed on many images. The saying is credited to English actor Ralph Richardson (1902-1983), although Richardson usually used “dream to order” instead of “dream on cue.”

“Coquelin summed up acting briefly. He said, ‘Acting is a trick’; and having said that he vanished like the Cheshire cat leaving everyone to guess at what he could have meant. My guess is that he meant that it is the trick of being able to detach a part of the mind to dream at will” was written by Richardson in i>The Modern Theatre on May 2, 1952. “One thing about the art of acting which is, as it were, dreaming to order, it is dreaming very punctually” was said by Richardson in Birmingham (UK) Post on January 9, 1960. “THAT is what an actor is paid to do. He dreams to order.—Sir Ralph Richardson.” was printed in The Observer (London, UK) on December 17, 1967. “If there’s no actor belief, you never hold the audience. I believe this. You must force yourself. you must dream to order” was said by Richardson in the Los Angeles (CA) Times on April 20, 1975.

“Acting is an illusion, as much an illusion as magic. It’s the ability to dream on cue. Actors have to dream to order” was said by Richardson In Screen Acting (1986). “(One actor’s definition of his craft) ‘Acting is the ability to dream on cue’” was printed in the Reno (NV) Gazette-Journal on November 11, 1992.

Wikipedia: Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He worked in films throughout most of his career, and played more than sixty cinema roles. From an artistic but not theatrical background, Richardson had no thought of a stage career until a production of Hamlet in Brighton inspired him to become an actor. He learned his craft in the 1920s with a touring company and later the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had taught him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End and on Broadway.
(...)
A leading actor of a younger generation, Albert Finney, has said that Richardson was not really an actor at all, but a magician. Miller, who interviewed many of Richardson’s colleagues for his 1995 biography, notes that when talking about Richardson’s acting, “magical” was a word many of them used. The Guardian judged Richardson “indisputably our most poetic actor”. For The Times, he “was ideally equipped to make an ordinary character seem extraordinary or an extraordinary one seem ordinary”. He himself touched on this dichotomy in his variously reported comments that acting was “merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing” or, alternatively, “dreaming to order”.

2 May 1952, The Modern Theatre (Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, London, UK), pg. 429:
II. THE ACTOR
By SIR RALPH RICHARDSON
Monday, 3rd March, 1952
Pg. 433:
The next, and the most important stage, is that of “make-believe”. Acting is make-believe for the audience all the time but, some of the time, it must be make-believe for the actor too. While rehearsing and while playing, when taking part in what is fiction, a section of the actor’s mind must take its leave, take its flight of fancy, and must, as it were, dream that what is happening is indeed reality. This dream or “make-believe” is the all-important rudder that guides the assembled and developed techniques at the actor’s command, together with the cold reasonings and the pre-conceived facts that he has in his mind.

Coquelin summed up acting briefly. He said, “Acting is a trick”; and having said that he vanished like the Cheshire cat leaving everyone to guess at what he could have meant. My guess is that he meant that it is the trick of being able to detach a part of the mind to dream at will.

Newspapers.com
9 January 1960, Birmingham (UK) Post, pg. 4, col. 2:
SIR RALPH RICHARDSON TALKS ON ACTOR’S ART
(...)
“Acting… It’s a vague, strange, magical sort of thing. It’s very hard to know where to pin it down. Punctuality—yes, that’s it. One thing about the art of acting which is, as it were, dreaming to order, it is dreaming very punctually.”

Newspapers.com
17 December 1967, The Observer (London, UK), “Sayings of the Week,” pg. 9, col. 5:
THAT is what an actor is paid to do. He dreams to order.—Sir Ralph Richardson.

Newspapers.com
20 April 1975, Los Angeles (CA) Times, “Sir Ralph Richardson—Actor, Oldster, Biker” by Bart Mills, Calendar sec., pg. 24, cols. 2-3:
“At the same time, you must make believe. The people watching believe, and you must believe it yourself—partly. You cannot believe the whole thing from start to finish. But you must believe in bits. Not the same bit in each performance. But some bits in every performance. If there’s no actor belief, you never hold the audience. I believe this. You must force yourself. you must dream to order.”

Newspapers.com
11 November 1992, Reno (NV) Gazette-Journal pg. 2B, col. 1:
(One actor’s definition of his craft)
“Acting is the ability to dream on cue.”

Google Books
Ralph Richardson:
An Actor’s Life
By Garry O’Connor
New York, NY: Applause
1997
Pg. 220:
Lewis proceeded, having disposed of the eccentricities: “I had always been intrigued by Sir Ralph’s description of acting as ‘dreaming to order.’”

Newspapers.com
13 June 1999, The Sunday Age (Melbourne, Victoria), “Once more, my name is writ upon water” by Bob Ellis, pg. 20, col. 5:
DREAMING to order—that was how Ralph Richardson described acting. And that’s about right, I think. To be, once a night, for an hour or so, someone else.

Google Books
A Dictionary of Cinema Quotations from Filmmakers and Critics:
Over 3,400 Axioms, Criticisms, Opinions and Witticisms from 100 Years of the Cinema
Compiled and edited by Stephen M. Ringler
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
2008
Pg. 113:
1819. Acting is an illusion, as much an illusion as magic. It’s the ability to dream on cue. Actors have to dream to order.
Ralph Richardson
Cited in Screen Acting, 1986

Twitter
Wendy Wilken
@1MonthFacelift
Acting is the ability to dream on cue.
2:27 AM · May 12, 2010·SocialOomph

Twitter
Chris Port
@martygull
Historical rubbish but superb ham. He’s from the old school of meticulous acting - what Ralph Richardson called “dreaming to order”.
10:05 PM · May 5, 2012·Twitter Web Client

Twitter
Roscoe has a justifiably jaundiced view
@JaundicedV
Tonight Friday at Gleebooks: “Dreaming to Order - A Journey Round Ralph Richardson”. Look who’s in it. See you there
https://gleebooks.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=180291
6:39 PM · Sep 4, 2014·TweetDeck

Twitter
MacCocktail (Mastodon: @MacCocktail@zirk.us)
@MacCocktail
“Acting is the ability to dream on cue.”
― Sir Ralph Richardson (born this day, December 19, 1902)
11:43 AM · Dec 19, 2017·Twitter for iPad

YouTube
Ralph Richardson “Acting is Partly Dreaming”
Pheidias Ictinus
Feb 28, 2018
Directed by Tristram Powell in 1972. Patrick Garland talks to Ralph Richardson in the year of his 70th birthday.
More information and examples of the work of television and film director Tristram Powell can be found at http://www.tristrampowell.com
(“Acting is partly dreaming” is explained at the 23-minute mark.—ed.)

Twitter
Steven Isserlis
@StevenIsserlis
The much-loved actor Sir Ralph Richardson, b otd 1902:
“Acting is the ability to dream on cue.”
“Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.”
“The most precious things in speech are the pauses.”
“Dead? No excuse for laying off work.”
3:19 AM · Dec 19, 2020·Twitter Web App

Twitter
#Theatre
@RusseLucas
Acting is the ability to dream on cue.
Ralph Richardson
#Theatre
#Actors
12:39 PM · Nov 2, 2022·Twitter for Android