Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

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

Goldblum, Jeff

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

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

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

Cusack, John

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

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Shakespeare, William

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

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

10.

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

Johnson, Alva

11.

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

Duras, Marguerite

12.

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

13.

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

Shearer, Norma

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

17.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Hazlitt, William

21.

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

Spacey, Kevin

22.

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

Carrey, Jim

23.

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

24.

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

Howard, Ron

25.

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

Leoni, Tea

26.

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

Python, Monty

27.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

28.

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

29.

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

George, Boy

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Marceau, Marcel

34.

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

Baldwin, Alec

35.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

36.

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

37.

I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!

Lansbury, Angela

38.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

39.

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

40.

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

41.

After Blood Simple, everybody thought I was from Texas. After Mississippi Burning, everybody thought I was from Mississippi and uneducated. After Fargo, everybody's going to think I'm from Minnesota, pregnant, and have blonde hair. I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be.

McDormand, Frances

42.

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

Fonda, Jane

43.

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

Wood, Elijah

44.

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

45.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

46.

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

47.

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. [On being an actor]

Ford, Harrison

48.

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

49.

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

Jackson, Glenda

50.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert