Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!

Lansbury, Angela

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

Irons, Jeremy

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

Python, Monty

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

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

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

Marceau, Marcel

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

10.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

11.

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

Half, Robert

12.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

13.

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

Howard, Ron

14.

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

Vaughan, Bill

15.

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

16.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Ulrich, Skeet

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

20.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera -- both of which I did as soon as I left the [Acting] Company and was starving.

Kline, Kevin

21.

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

John, Elton

22.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Close, Glenn

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

30.

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

Quinn, Anthony

31.

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

Welles, Orson

32.

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

Barthes, Roland

33.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

34.

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)

35.

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

36.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

37.

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

38.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

39.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

40.

You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film -- you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.

Lewis, Daniel Day

41.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Carrey, Jim

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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.