Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Celebrity is death --- celebrity -- that's the worst thing that can happen to an actor.

Cusack, John

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

Wood, Elijah

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

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

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

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

10.

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

Zane, Billy

11.

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

Baldwin, Alec

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

15.

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

Sinden, Donald

16.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

17.

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

Diderot, Denis

18.

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

Field, Eugene

19.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

20.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

21.

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

Newman, Paul

22.

Macliammoir, Micheal

23.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

24.

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.

25.

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

Garland, Judy

26.

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

Duras, Marguerite

27.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

28.

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

29.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

30.

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

Close, Glenn

31.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

32.

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

Half, Robert

33.

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Huxley, Aldous

34.

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

35.

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Barrymore, Ethel

36.

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

Brosnan, Pierce

37.

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

38.

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

Spacey, Kevin

39.

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

Glass, George

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

46.

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

47.

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

Hannah, Daryl

48.

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

Marceau, Marcel

49.

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

50.

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