Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

I have to act to live.

- Olivier, Sir Lawrence

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

George, Boy

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

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

Sinden, Donald

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

Lansbury, Angela

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

Barthes, Roland

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

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

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

10.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

11.

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

12.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

13.

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

Byron, Lord

14.

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

15.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

16.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

17.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

18.

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

Carrey, Jim

19.

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

20.

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

John, Elton

21.

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

Jackson, Glenda

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Half, Robert

28.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

33.

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

Shearer, Norma

34.

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

Hazlitt, William

35.

An agent is a person who is sore because an actor gets 90% of what they make.

Johnson, Alva

36.

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

Duras, Marguerite

37.

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

Diderot, Denis

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Field, Eugene

41.

Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life and I don't see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.

Sinden, Donald

42.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

43.

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

44.

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.

45.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

46.

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

Fonda, Jane

47.

Ah just act the way ah feel.