Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

- Redford, Robert

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

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

Barthes, Roland

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

Hazlitt, William

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

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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

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

Shearer, Norma

10.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

11.

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

Carrey, Jim

12.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

13.

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

Irons, Jeremy

14.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

15.

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

Close, Glenn

16.

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

17.

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

18.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

Fiske, Minnie

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Duras, Marguerite

22.

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

Wood, Elijah

23.

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

24.

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

25.

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Python, Monty

29.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

30.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

31.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

32.

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

33.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

34.

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

35.

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

Diderot, Denis

36.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Half, Robert

41.

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

Garland, Judy

42.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

43.

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

Baldwin, Alec

44.

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing -- all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art -- at the door.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

45.

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

46.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

Shakespeare, William

47.

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

Lansbury, Angela

48.

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

Fonda, Jane

49.

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

50.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler