Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

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

Hazlitt, William

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

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

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

I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.

Moore, Mary Tyler

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

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

Close, Glenn

10.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

11.

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

12.

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

Marceau, Marcel

13.

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

14.

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

Python, Monty

15.

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

Fonda, Jane

16.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

17.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

18.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

19.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

20.

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

21.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

22.

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

23.

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

Cusack, John

24.

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

Fiske, Minnie

25.

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

26.

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

Newman, Paul

27.

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.

28.

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

29.

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

Lansbury, Angela

30.

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

31.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful -- my personal life suffers.

Pacino, Al

32.

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

33.

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

Brosnan, Pierce

34.

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

35.

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

Barthes, Roland

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Wood, Elijah

39.

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

Duras, Marguerite

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.

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

Spacey, Kevin

42.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

47.

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

Dundy, Elaine

48.

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

49.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

50.

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