Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

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

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

Diderot, Denis

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

Spacey, Kevin

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

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes.

Driver, Minnie

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

13.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

14.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

15.

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

Close, Glenn

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

19.

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

Shearer, Norma

20.

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

21.

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

Python, Monty

22.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

23.

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

Pacino, Al

24.

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

25.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

26.

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

Davis, Bette

27.

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

28.

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

Field, Eugene

29.

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

Richardson, Miranda

30.

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

31.

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

32.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

Brando, Marlon

33.

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

34.

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

Marceau, Marcel

35.

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

Byron, Lord

36.

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

Newman, Paul

37.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

41.

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

Hannah, Daryl

42.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

43.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

44.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

45.

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

John, Elton

46.

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

47.

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

Barthes, Roland

48.

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

George, Boy

49.

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

Glass, George

50.

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