Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Actors are loved because they are unoriginal. Actors stick to their script. The unoriginal man is loved by the mediocrity because this kind of artistic expression is something to which the merest five-eighth can climb.

- Kavanagh, Patrick

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

The actor searches vainly for the sound of a vanished tradition, and critic and audience follow suit. We have lost all sense of ritual and ceremony -- whether it be connected with Christmas, birthdays or funerals -- but the words remain with us and old impulses stir in the marrow. We feel we should have rituals, we should do something about getting them and we blame the artists for not finding them for us. So the artist sometimes attempts to find new rituals with only his imagination as his source: he imitates the outer form of ceremonies, pagan or baroque, unfortunately adding his own trapping -- the result is rarely convincing. And after the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.

Brook, Peter (Stephen Paul)

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.

Vaughan, Bill

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

Goldblum, Jeff

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Lewis, Daniel Day

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing -- all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art -- at the door.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

An actress must never lose her ego--without it she has no talent.

Shearer, Norma

10.

I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.

Stallone, Sylvester

11.

Celebrity is death --- celebrity -- that's the worst thing that can happen to an actor.

Cusack, John

12.

She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity -- and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.

Duras, Marguerite

13.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

14.

An actor is a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening.

Glass, George

15.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

16.

You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film -- you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.

Lewis, Daniel Day

17.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Ulrich, Skeet

18.

I don't want to read about some of these actresses who are around today. They sound like my niece in Scarsdale. I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won't buy tickets to see her act.

Price, Vincent

19.

To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

20.

The most minor gifts and not a very high class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.

Hepburn, Katharine

21.

The hardest part has been maintaining a small head--remaining down to earth. So many people try to make you more than you are. This business has changed a lot of good people and a lot of good families, and I don't want that to happen to me.

Brandy

22.

I can't tell you how many shows I've done with full-blown migraine headaches.

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

23.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar-- you pretend it's not there.

Hannah, Daryl

24.

I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there?

Python, Monty

25.

Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes. [On filming MacHale's Navy]

Campbell, Bruce

26.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

Brecht, Bertolt

27.

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.

Hazlitt, William

28.

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

Huston, John

29.

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

Close, Glenn

30.

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

31.

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.

Half, Robert

32.

Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.

Duras, Marguerite

33.

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes.

Driver, Minnie

34.

I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

Byron, Lord

35.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

36.

I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.

Whitaker, Forest

37.

Kavanagh, Patrick

38.

I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

Marceau, Marcel

39.

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

Johnson, Samuel

40.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

Newman, Paul

41.

I don't do T & A very well because I haven't got much of either.

Leoni, Tea

42.

I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.

Moore, Mary Tyler

43.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

44.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

Hagen, Uta

45.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

46.

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

47.

It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.

Malkovich, John

48.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

49.

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

Hepburn, Katharine

50.

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

Olin, Lena