Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Leoni, Tea

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

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

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

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

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

Fonda, Jane

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

Garland, Judy

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

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

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

Hazlitt, William

10.

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

11.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

12.

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

Davis, Bette

13.

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

Spacey, Kevin

14.

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

Shearer, Norma

15.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

16.

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

Diderot, Denis

17.

It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.

Malkovich, John

18.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

23.

The most minor gifts and not a very high class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.

Hepburn, Katharine

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Vaughan, Bill

27.

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

Hannah, Daryl

28.

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

29.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Wood, Elijah

34.

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

Marceau, Marcel

35.

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

Barthes, Roland

36.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Irons, Jeremy

42.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

Hagen, Uta

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

46.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

47.

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

Pacino, Al

48.

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