Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Vaughan, Bill

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

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

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

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

Richardson, Miranda

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

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

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

10.

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

Field, Eugene

11.

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

Duras, Marguerite

12.

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

Forrest, Edwin

13.

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

Sinden, Donald

14.

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

Irons, Jeremy

15.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

16.

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

17.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

18.

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

Hannah, Daryl

19.

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.

20.

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

Baldwin, Alec

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Python, Monty

24.

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

25.

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

26.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

27.

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

28.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

29.

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

Close, Glenn

30.

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

Quinn, Anthony

31.

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

32.

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

Fonda, Jane

33.

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

Spacey, Kevin

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Half, Robert

38.

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

Leoni, Tea

39.

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

40.

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

Welles, Orson

41.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

42.

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

43.

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

Carrey, Jim

44.

She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity -- and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.

Duras, Marguerite

45.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

46.

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

47.

An actor is a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening.

Glass, George

48.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

49.

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

Wood, Elijah

50.

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