Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

An actor is a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening.

- Glass, George

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

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.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

Fiske, Minnie

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

Close, Glenn

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

Goldblum, Jeff

10.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

11.

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

Welles, Orson

12.

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

Barthes, Roland

13.

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

14.

Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.

Carrey, Jim

15.

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

16.

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

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.

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

19.

If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.

Vaughan, Bill

20.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

21.

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

Leoni, Tea

22.

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

Garland, Judy

23.

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

24.

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

Python, Monty

25.

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

26.

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

Newman, Paul

27.

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

28.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

29.

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

30.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

34.

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

35.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

36.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

37.

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

38.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

39.

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

George, Boy

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.

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

42.

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

Quinn, Anthony

43.

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

Sinden, Donald

44.

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

Pacino, Al

45.

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

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.

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

Hazlitt, William

48.

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

Diderot, Denis

49.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

50.

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