Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Cervantes, Miguel De

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

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

Glass, George

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

Carrey, Jim

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

Jackson, Glenda

After Blood Simple, everybody thought I was from Texas. After Mississippi Burning, everybody thought I was from Mississippi and uneducated. After Fargo, everybody's going to think I'm from Minnesota, pregnant, and have blonde hair. I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be.

McDormand, Frances

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

Byron, Lord

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

Cusack, John

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

10.

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

Pacino, Al

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Garland, Judy

14.

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

John, Elton

18.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

19.

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

Python, Monty

20.

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

21.

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

Baldwin, Alec

22.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

23.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

24.

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

Forrest, Edwin

25.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

26.

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

27.

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

Richardson, Miranda

28.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

29.

Mr. Clarke played the King all evening as though under constant fear that someone else was about to play the Ace.

Field, Eugene

30.

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

Close, Glenn

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Fiske, Minnie

34.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

35.

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

Welles, Orson

36.

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

37.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

38.

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

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.

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

41.

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

Irons, Jeremy

42.

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

43.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

44.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Shakespeare, William

45.

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

46.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

47.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

48.

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

Fonda, Jane

49.

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