Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

- Fonda, Henry

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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 don't do T & A very well because I haven't got much of either.

Leoni, Tea

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

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

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

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

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

10.

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

Baldwin, Alec

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Shearer, Norma

15.

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

16.

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

17.

This is not a tough job. You read a script. If you like the part and the money is O.K., you do it. Then you remember your lines. You show up on time. You do what the director tells you to do. When you finish, you rest and then go on to the next part. That's it.

Mitchum, Robert

18.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

Goldblum, Jeff

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Richardson, Miranda

22.

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

23.

The actor searches vainly for the sound of a vanished tradition, and critic and audience follow suit. We have lost all sense of ritual and ceremony -- whether it be connected with Christmas, birthdays or funerals -- but the words remain with us and old impulses stir in the marrow. We feel we should have rituals, we should do something about getting them and we blame the artists for not finding them for us. So the artist sometimes attempts to find new rituals with only his imagination as his source: he imitates the outer form of ceremonies, pagan or baroque, unfortunately adding his own trapping -- the result is rarely convincing. And after the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.

Brook, Peter (Stephen Paul)

24.

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

Close, Glenn

25.

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

26.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

27.

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

Howard, Ron

28.

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

Byron, Lord

29.

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

Python, Monty

30.

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

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.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

33.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

34.

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Davis, Bette

39.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

40.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

41.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

42.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

43.

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

John, Elton

44.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

45.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

46.

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

47.

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

Fiske, Minnie

48.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

49.

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

Welles, Orson

50.

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