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

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

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

John, Elton

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

Hepburn, Katharine

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

Garland, Judy

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

Chaplin, Charlie

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

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

Davis, Bette

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

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.

Fields, W. C.

10.

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

11.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

12.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

13.

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

14.

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

15.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

16.

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

17.

Lawless, Lucy

18.

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

19.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Shaw, George Bernard

20.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

21.

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

22.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

23.

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

24.

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

25.

I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

Byron, Lord

26.

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

27.

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

Glass, George

28.

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

29.

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

Shearer, Norma

30.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

31.

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.

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.

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

George, Boy

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

38.

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

Welles, Orson

39.

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

Diderot, Denis

40.

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

Richardson, Miranda

41.

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

Fiske, Minnie

42.

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

Half, Robert

43.

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

Lansbury, Angela

44.

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

45.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

46.

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

Barthes, Roland

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

50.

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

Sinden, Donald