Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

- Barkin, Ellen

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Lewis, Daniel Day

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

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

Chaplin, Charlie

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

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.

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

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

10.

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

Richardson, Miranda

11.

I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there?

Python, Monty

12.

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

13.

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

Newman, Paul

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Pacino, Al

17.

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

Baldwin, Alec

18.

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

Close, Glenn

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

22.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

23.

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

Marceau, Marcel

24.

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

Byron, Lord

25.

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

Glass, George

26.

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

27.

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

28.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

29.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

30.

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

Carrey, Jim

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

34.

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

Quinn, Anthony

35.

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

36.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Shaw, George Bernard

37.

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

38.

One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.

Bresson, Robert

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.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

42.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

43.

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar-- you pretend it's not there.

Hannah, Daryl

44.

An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.

Sinden, Donald

45.

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

46.

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

Half, Robert

47.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

48.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

49.

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