Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Half, Robert

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

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

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

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

Pacino, Al

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

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

Lansbury, Angela

10.

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

11.

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Lewis, Daniel Day

12.

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

13.

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

Diderot, Denis

14.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

15.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

16.

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

Johnson, Alva

17.

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

18.

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

Fonda, Jane

19.

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

20.

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

Python, Monty

21.

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

22.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

23.

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

Irons, Jeremy

24.

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

Duras, Marguerite

25.

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

26.

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

Richardson, Miranda

27.

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

28.

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

Close, Glenn

29.

We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?

Macliammoir, Micheal

30.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Byron, Lord

34.

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

Garland, Judy

35.

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

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.

The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event.

Barthes, Roland

38.

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

Newman, Paul

39.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

40.

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

John, Elton

41.

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

Hazlitt, William

42.

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

Hannah, Daryl

43.

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

44.

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

45.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

46.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

47.

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

Field, Eugene

48.

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