Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Glass, George

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

Shearer, Norma

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

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

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

Spacey, Kevin

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

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

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

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

10.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Ulrich, Skeet

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

George, Boy

16.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

17.

We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?

Macliammoir, Micheal

18.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

19.

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

20.

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

Baldwin, Alec

21.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

22.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera -- both of which I did as soon as I left the [Acting] Company and was starving.

Kline, Kevin

23.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

24.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

25.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

26.

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

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.

Lawless, Lucy

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Garland, Judy

32.

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

33.

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

Howard, Ron

34.

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

35.

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

Marceau, Marcel

36.

I don't want to read about some of these actresses who are around today. They sound like my niece in Scarsdale. I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won't buy tickets to see her act.

Price, Vincent

37.

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

Close, Glenn

38.

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

Pacino, Al

39.

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

40.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

41.

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

42.

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

Carrey, Jim

43.

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

Hazlitt, William

44.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

45.

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

46.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

47.

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

48.

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

49.

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

50.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat