Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

Wilder, Thornton

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

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

George, Boy

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

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

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

Wood, Elijah

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

10.

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

11.

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

Baldwin, Alec

12.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

13.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

14.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

15.

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

Hannah, Daryl

16.

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

Vaughan, Bill

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

21.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

22.

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

Spacey, Kevin

23.

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

24.

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

Marceau, Marcel

25.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.

Buscemi, Steve

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Garland, Judy

29.

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

30.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

31.

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

Sinden, Donald

32.

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

33.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

34.

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

35.

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

Field, Eugene

36.

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

Newman, Paul

37.

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

Duras, Marguerite

38.

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

Davis, Bette

39.

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

Half, Robert

40.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

41.

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

42.

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

Johnson, Alva

43.

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

44.

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

Python, Monty

45.

The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.

Auden, W. H.

46.

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

47.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

48.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

49.

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

50.

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