Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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

Diderot, Denis

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

Hannah, Daryl

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

Field, Eugene

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Shaw, George Bernard

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

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

Lansbury, Angela

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

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

Fiske, Minnie

10.

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

11.

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

Python, Monty

12.

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

Byron, Lord

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

16.

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

Welles, Orson

17.

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

John, Elton

18.

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

Glass, George

19.

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

Johnson, Alva

20.

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

21.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Irving, Washington

22.

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. [On being an actor]

Ford, Harrison

23.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

24.

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

25.

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

Richardson, Miranda

26.

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

Carrey, Jim

27.

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

Leoni, Tea

28.

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

29.

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

30.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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.

37.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

38.

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

Marceau, Marcel

39.

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

Howard, Ron

40.

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

Garland, Judy

41.

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

42.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

43.

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

44.

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

45.

It's a business you go into because you're an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

46.

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

47.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

48.

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

Irons, Jeremy

49.

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

50.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre