Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

You are not in business to be popular.

- Alley, Kirstie

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Leoni, Tea

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

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

Hazlitt, William

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

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

10.

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

Wood, Elijah

11.

An agent is a person who is sore because an actor gets 90% of what they make.

Johnson, Alva

12.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Shakespeare, William

13.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

14.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

15.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

16.

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

Glass, George

17.

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

Irons, Jeremy

18.

If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.

George, Boy

19.

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

Dundy, Elaine

20.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

21.

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

22.

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

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.

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

26.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

27.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

28.

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

29.

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture.

Bernhardt, Sarah

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 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)

32.

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

Fonda, Jane

33.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

34.

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

35.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.

Buscemi, Steve

36.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

37.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

38.

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

39.

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

Richardson, Miranda

40.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

41.

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

42.

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

Davis, Bette

43.

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Tracy, Spencer

44.

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

Quinn, Anthony

45.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that. [On his acting techniques]

D'Onofrio, Vincent

46.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

47.

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

Marceau, Marcel

48.

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

Pacino, Al

49.

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

50.

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

Byron, Lord