Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

First of all, I choose the great [roles], and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

- Caine, Michael

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

Actors often behave like children, and so we're taken for children. I want to be grown up.

Irons, Jeremy

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.

Spacey, Kevin

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Huxley, Aldous

An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.

Sinden, Donald

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

People say I'm cocky, but am I supposed to sit here and be insecure and not know where my future's going or not realize that moviemaking is the greatest thing to happen to me?

Lewis, Juliette

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

Cusack, John

10.

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

11.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

12.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

13.

I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it's been pretty fun.

Hunter, Holly

14.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

15.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

Fiske, Minnie

16.

This is not a tough job. You read a script. If you like the part and the money is O.K., you do it. Then you remember your lines. You show up on time. You do what the director tells you to do. When you finish, you rest and then go on to the next part. That's it.

Mitchum, Robert

17.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

18.

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

19.

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

Duras, Marguerite

20.

The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart.

Davis, Bette

21.

The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.

Auden, W. H.

22.

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

23.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

24.

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

Hazlitt, William

25.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

26.

Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.

Richardson, Miranda

27.

It's a business you go into because you're an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

28.

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

Leoni, Tea

29.

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

Python, Monty

30.

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.

Moreau, Jeanne

31.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful -- my personal life suffers.

Pacino, Al

32.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

33.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Shaw, George Bernard

34.

I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!

Lansbury, Angela

35.

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

Shearer, Norma

36.

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. [On being an actor]

Ford, Harrison

37.

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Welles, Orson

38.

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

39.

After Blood Simple, everybody thought I was from Texas. After Mississippi Burning, everybody thought I was from Mississippi and uneducated. After Fargo, everybody's going to think I'm from Minnesota, pregnant, and have blonde hair. I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be.

McDormand, Frances

40.

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

Zane, Billy

41.

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

42.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

43.

I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

Baldwin, Alec

44.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

45.

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

Wood, Elijah

46.

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

Vaughan, Bill

47.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

Wilder, Thornton

48.

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead. [On his college registration experience]

Selleck, Tom

49.

I want to do a musical movie. Like Evita, but with good music.

John, Elton

50.

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