Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

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

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

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

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

Dundy, Elaine

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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

George, Boy

10.

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

Baldwin, Alec

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

15.

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

Byron, Lord

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.

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 is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

19.

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

20.

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

21.

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Tracy, Spencer

22.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

27.

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

Cusack, John

28.

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

29.

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

Duras, Marguerite

30.

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

Glass, George

31.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

32.

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.

Hazlitt, William

33.

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

34.

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

Irons, Jeremy

35.

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

Pacino, Al

36.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

37.

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

38.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Johnson, Alva

42.

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

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.

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

Fonda, Jane

45.

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

Davis, Bette

46.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

47.

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

Python, Monty

48.

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

49.

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

Richardson, Miranda

50.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

Fiske, Minnie