Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

An actor is only merchandise.

- Chow Yun-Fat

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

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

Fonda, Jane

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

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

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

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

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

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

Close, Glenn

10.

I can't tell you how many shows I've done with full-blown migraine headaches.

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

11.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.

Buscemi, Steve

12.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

13.

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

John, Elton

14.

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

Carrey, Jim

15.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

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.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Byron, Lord

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

26.

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

Lansbury, Angela

27.

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

28.

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

Marceau, Marcel

29.

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

Richardson, Miranda

30.

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

Fiske, Minnie

31.

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

32.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

33.

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

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.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

36.

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

Irons, Jeremy

37.

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

38.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

39.

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

Garland, Judy

40.

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

Vaughan, Bill

41.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

42.

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

Spacey, Kevin

43.

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

44.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

49.

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

Wood, Elijah

50.

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

Cusack, John