Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Marceau, Marcel

It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.

Malkovich, John

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

After Blood Simple, everybody thought I was from Texas. After Mississippi Burning, everybody thought I was from Mississippi and uneducated. After Fargo, everybody's going to think I'm from Minnesota, pregnant, and have blonde hair. I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be.

McDormand, Frances

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Welles, Orson

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

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

10.

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

11.

To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

12.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

13.

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

14.

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

Cusack, John

15.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

16.

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

17.

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

Leoni, Tea

18.

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

19.

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

Forrest, Edwin

20.

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

21.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

22.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

23.

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

Sinden, Donald

24.

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

25.

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

Hazlitt, William

26.

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

27.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

28.

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

Garland, Judy

29.

I was sitting in the looping studio late one night, and I had this epiphany that they weren't paying me for my acting, for God's sake, but to own me. And from then on, it became clear and an awful lot easier to deal with.

Lawless, Lucy

30.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

31.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

32.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Shakespeare, William

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

40.

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

Newman, Paul

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.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

43.

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

44.

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

Fiske, Minnie

45.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

46.

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

Baldwin, Alec

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Lansbury, Angela

50.

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