Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Somebody told me I should put a pebble in my mouth to cure my stuttering. Well, I tried it, and during a scene I swallowed the pebble. That was the end of that.

- Davies, Marion

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes.

Driver, Minnie

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

Quinn, Anthony

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

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar-- you pretend it's not there.

Hannah, Daryl

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

Davis, Bette

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

Python, Monty

10.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

11.

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

12.

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

Diderot, Denis

13.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

14.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

15.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

16.

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

Wood, Elijah

17.

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

George, Boy

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

21.

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

22.

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

Lansbury, Angela

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

28.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

29.

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

Cusack, John

30.

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

31.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

32.

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

Johnson, Alva

33.

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

34.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

35.

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

36.

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

Spacey, Kevin

37.

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

Shearer, Norma

38.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

39.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Fiske, Minnie

43.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

44.

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

Pacino, Al

45.

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

46.

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

47.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

Newman, Paul

48.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

49.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

50.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.