Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Garland, Judy

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Wood, Elijah

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

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

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

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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

Quinn, Anthony

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

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

Pacino, Al

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

13.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Irons, Jeremy

17.

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

18.

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

Shearer, Norma

19.

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

Spacey, Kevin

20.

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

Welles, Orson

21.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

22.

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

Field, Eugene

23.

The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.

Auden, W. H.

24.

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

25.

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

Leoni, Tea

26.

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

27.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

28.

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

29.

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

Baldwin, Alec

30.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

31.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

32.

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

33.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

34.

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

Terry, Ellen

35.

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

Hazlitt, William

36.

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

37.

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

Richardson, Miranda

38.

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

39.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

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

41.

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

Davis, Bette

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Garland, Judy

45.

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

Sinden, Donald

46.

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

47.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

48.

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

Byron, Lord

49.

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

50.

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.