Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Hepburn, Katharine

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Moreau, Jeanne

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

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

Irons, Jeremy

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

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

Fiske, Minnie

I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it's been pretty fun.

Hunter, Holly

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

Garland, Judy

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

10.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

15.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Sinden, Donald

20.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

21.

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Huxley, Aldous

22.

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

Half, Robert

23.

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

Welles, Orson

24.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

25.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

26.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

27.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

28.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

29.

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

Newman, Paul

30.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Baldwin, Alec

34.

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Barrymore, Ethel

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Davis, Bette

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Hazlitt, William

42.

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

Fonda, Jane

43.

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

Cusack, John

44.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

George, Boy

48.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

49.

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

50.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard