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

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

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

Hazlitt, William

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

Close, Glenn

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

Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.

Brando, Marlon

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

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

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

12.

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

Vaughan, Bill

13.

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

George, Boy

14.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Spacey, Kevin

19.

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

20.

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

21.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

22.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

23.

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

Glass, George

24.

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

Howard, Ron

25.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

26.

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

Fonda, Jane

27.

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

John, Elton

28.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

29.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

34.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

35.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

36.

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

37.

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

Field, Eugene

38.

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

39.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

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

Baldwin, Alec

41.

Celebrity is death --- celebrity -- that's the worst thing that can happen to an actor.

Cusack, John

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Diderot, Denis

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.

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

Barthes, Roland

47.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

48.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

49.

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