Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

I find myself fascinating.

- Dreyfus, Richard

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

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

Fiske, Minnie

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

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.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

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

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

Marceau, Marcel

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

10.

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

11.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

16.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

17.

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

Close, Glenn

18.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

19.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

20.

An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.

Sinden, Donald

21.

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

22.

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

23.

I don't want to read about some of these actresses who are around today. They sound like my niece in Scarsdale. I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won't buy tickets to see her act.

Price, Vincent

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Richardson, Miranda

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

John, Elton

31.

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

32.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Diderot, Denis

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

Shakespeare, William

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Spacey, Kevin

44.

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

Howard, Ron

45.

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

Irons, Jeremy

46.

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

47.

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

Baldwin, Alec

48.

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

Quinn, Anthony

49.

You know how in high school you do these plays and people come up after the show and they're really excited for you? Well, that's what's happening to me right now.

Sorvino, Mira

50.

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

Python, Monty