Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

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

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

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

Diderot, Denis

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

I'm not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.

Stallone, Sylvester

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

Lansbury, Angela

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

Davis, Bette

10.

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

Byron, Lord

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

14.

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

15.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

16.

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.

17.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

18.

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

19.

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

20.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

21.

Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes. [On filming MacHale's Navy]

Campbell, Bruce

22.

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

23.

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

Marceau, Marcel

24.

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

Spacey, Kevin

25.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

26.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

27.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

28.

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

Johnson, Alva

29.

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

Cusack, John

30.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

31.

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

32.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

33.

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

Python, Monty

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Half, Robert

37.

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

38.

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

39.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Barthes, Roland

43.

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

Vaughan, Bill

44.

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

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.

Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.

Sinden, Donald

47.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

48.

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Barrymore, Ethel

49.

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

50.

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