Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Davis, Bette

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

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

Byron, Lord

You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.

Fonda, Jane

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

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

Pacino, Al

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else.

Davis Jr., Sammy

10.

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

11.

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

Half, Robert

12.

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

Hazlitt, William

13.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

14.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

15.

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.

Fields, W. C.

16.

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

Vaughan, Bill

17.

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

Chaplin, Charlie

18.

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

Diderot, Denis

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Cusack, John

22.

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Barrymore, Ethel

23.

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

Duras, Marguerite

24.

You know how in high school you do these plays and people come up after the show and they're really excited for you? Well, that's what's happening to me right now.

Sorvino, Mira

25.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera -- both of which I did as soon as I left the [Acting] Company and was starving.

Kline, Kevin

26.

Somebody told me I should put a pebble in my mouth to cure my stuttering. Well, I tried it, and during a scene I swallowed the pebble. That was the end of that.

Davies, Marion

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Shearer, Norma

31.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

32.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

33.

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

Richardson, Miranda

34.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

35.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

36.

You can't do four movies and be good to everybody and be flying all night and shooting all day with a different wig and then be going to sing on Broadway without feeling a little tired. You endlessly feel you're letting somebody down.

Parker, Sarah Jessica

37.

Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.

Carrey, Jim

38.

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

39.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

40.

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

Quinn, Anthony

41.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

42.

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

Spacey, Kevin

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Irving, Washington

47.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

48.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

49.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

50.

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