Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Pacino, Al

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else.

Davis Jr., Sammy

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

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

Field, Eugene

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

Lansbury, Angela

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

Shearer, Norma

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

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

Lewis, Daniel Day

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

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

10.

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

Leoni, Tea

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Half, Robert

18.

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

19.

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

Richardson, Miranda

20.

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

Newman, Paul

21.

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

George, Boy

22.

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

23.

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

24.

You know how in high school you do these plays and people come up after the show and they're really excited for you? Well, that's what's happening to me right now.

Sorvino, Mira

25.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

26.

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

27.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

28.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

29.

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

30.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

31.

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

32.

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

Hannah, Daryl

33.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

34.

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

35.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

36.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

37.

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

Quinn, Anthony

38.

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.

39.

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

Davis, Bette

40.

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

41.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

Jackson, Glenda

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

48.

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

49.

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

Diderot, Denis

50.

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

Wood, Elijah