Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Baldwin, Alec

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

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

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

Spacey, Kevin

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

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

Welles, Orson

10.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

Jackson, Glenda

11.

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.

12.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

13.

The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.

Campbell, Thomas

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Cusack, John

17.

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

George, Boy

18.

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

19.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

20.

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

21.

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

Johnson, Alva

22.

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

Diderot, Denis

23.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

Brecht, Bertolt

24.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

25.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

26.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Leoni, Tea

30.

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

Davis, Bette

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Carrey, Jim

35.

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

Shearer, Norma

36.

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

37.

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

Newman, Paul

38.

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

Baldwin, Alec

39.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

40.

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

41.

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

Vaughan, Bill

42.

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

43.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

44.

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

45.

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

Brosnan, Pierce

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

49.

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

Barthes, Roland

50.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence