Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

You are not in business to be popular.

- Alley, Kirstie

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

Jackson, Glenda

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

George, Boy

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

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

Glass, George

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

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

10.

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

11.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

12.

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

13.

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

Close, Glenn

14.

The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to lifeless forms must be born in a man. No dramatic college can teach its pupils to think or to feel. It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression.

Wilde, Oscar

15.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

16.

The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

Cervantes, Miguel De

17.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

18.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

19.

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

20.

I was sitting in the looping studio late one night, and I had this epiphany that they weren't paying me for my acting, for God's sake, but to own me. And from then on, it became clear and an awful lot easier to deal with.

Lawless, Lucy

21.

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

Welles, Orson

22.

We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?

Macliammoir, Micheal

23.

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

Newman, Paul

24.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

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.

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

27.

The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event.

Barthes, Roland

28.

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

29.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

30.

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

John, Elton

31.

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

Johnson, Alva

32.

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

Fiske, Minnie

33.

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

Half, Robert

34.

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

Cusack, John

35.

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

Diderot, Denis

36.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

37.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

38.

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

39.

Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist.

Moreau, Jeanne

40.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

41.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

42.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

43.

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

44.

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

Leoni, Tea

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

Terry, Ellen

49.

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)

50.

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