Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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.

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

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

Barthes, Roland

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

Richardson, Miranda

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

Auden, W. H.

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

Baldwin, Alec

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

10.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

11.

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

12.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

13.

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

Diderot, Denis

14.

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

Cusack, John

15.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Fiske, Minnie

20.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

Shakespeare, William

21.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

22.

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

Leoni, Tea

23.

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)

24.

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

Garland, Judy

25.

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

26.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

35.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

36.

Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.

Brando, Marlon

37.

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

Newman, Paul

38.

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

39.

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

40.

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

41.

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

John, Elton

42.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

43.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

44.

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

45.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

Brando, Marlon

46.

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

Byron, Lord

47.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Hepburn, Katharine