Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Goldblum, Jeff

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist.

Moreau, Jeanne

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

Leoni, Tea

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

John, Elton

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

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

Cusack, John

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

Quinn, Anthony

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

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar-- you pretend it's not there.

Hannah, Daryl

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

Irons, Jeremy

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.

Duras, Marguerite

13.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

14.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

15.

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

16.

To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

17.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

18.

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

19.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.

Half, Robert

24.

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

Close, Glenn

25.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

26.

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

27.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

28.

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

29.

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

Marceau, Marcel

30.

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

Byron, Lord

31.

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

32.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

33.

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

Carrey, Jim

34.

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

35.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

38.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

39.

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

40.

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

Python, Monty

41.

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.

42.

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

Vaughan, Bill

43.

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

Fiske, Minnie

44.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Baldwin, Alec

48.

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

49.

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

Barthes, Roland

50.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane