Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Howard, Ron

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Cusack, John

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

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

Marceau, Marcel

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

John, Elton

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

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

Field, Eugene

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

10.

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

11.

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

Shearer, Norma

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Duras, Marguerite

15.

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

16.

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

Close, Glenn

17.

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

Lansbury, Angela

18.

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

19.

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

20.

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else.

Davis Jr., Sammy

21.

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

22.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

23.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

27.

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

28.

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

Wood, Elijah

29.

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

Quinn, Anthony

30.

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

31.

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

Garland, Judy

32.

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

Johnson, Alva

33.

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

George, Boy

34.

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

Zane, Billy

35.

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

Chaplin, Charlie

36.

Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.

Richardson, Miranda

37.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

38.

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

39.

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

Baldwin, Alec

40.

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

Fonda, Jane

41.

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

42.

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

Diderot, Denis

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

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.

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

Davis, Bette