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

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

Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.

Duras, Marguerite

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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

Baldwin, Alec

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Pacino, Al

12.

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

13.

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

Davis, Bette

14.

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

15.

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

16.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

17.

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Huxley, Aldous

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Forrest, Edwin

21.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

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.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

24.

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

25.

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

26.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

27.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

28.

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

29.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

30.

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

Shearer, Norma

31.

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

32.

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

33.

You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.

Fonda, Jane

34.

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

35.

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

Garland, Judy

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

40.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

41.

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

Johnson, Samuel

42.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

43.

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

Spacey, Kevin

44.

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

45.

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

Half, Robert

46.

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

Carrey, Jim

47.

Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

Olin, Lena

48.

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

Sinden, Donald

49.

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

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.