Movies have takes. But plays are like life - you don’t really get takes.

Rock contrasts the production logic of film—where scenes can be repeated, edited, and perfected through multiple takes—with the live, unrepeatable nature of theatre. In a play, performers must sustain character, timing, and emotional truth in real time, with mistakes and surprises folded into the same continuous event the audience experiences. By likening plays to life, he underscores how lived experience offers no reset button: choices land, moments pass, and you must keep going. The remark also functions as a defense of stage craft, suggesting that theatre demands a distinctive kind of courage, discipline, and presence that differs from screen acting.