I can spend hours in a grocery store. I get so excited when I see food I go crazy. I spend hours arranging my baskets so that everything fits in and nothing gets squashed. I'm really anal about it actually.
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
All the best performers bring to their role something more something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.