feed off
Verb
Meaning
(transitive, of an animal) To consume as part of a diet.
(transitive, idiomatic) To get stimulus from (an external object).
It seems like her boss feeds off her unhappiness.
Examples
I just feed off the energy of the audience.
A performance is only as good as the audience you are playing to. A lot of times you feed off of the audience, and we always try to give them all we've got and sometimes you don't get a lot back, but we've never been dead whenever we've performed.
The biggest problems were to do with... well, to get that successful when you're so young, it attracts hangers-on, parasites, people who want to feed off you.
I have worked alone and with a cast and enjoy the process both ways. There is more back-and-forth with a full cast, and you can feed off the other actors' performance.
If you want to stay fit, surround yourself with a couple of chicks who are fired up, so that the one day you're not, you can feed off their energy.
I think writers are a lot like lawyers. We feed off the misfortunes of people, even ourselves.