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

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

Pacino, Al

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

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.

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

Hazlitt, William

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

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

Half, Robert

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

Duras, Marguerite

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

Glass, George

16.

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

17.

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

Lansbury, Angela

18.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

19.

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

Newman, Paul

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

23.

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

24.

I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.

Spacey, Kevin

25.

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

Forrest, Edwin

26.

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

27.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

28.

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

29.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

30.

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

31.

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

Python, Monty

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

Fiske, Minnie

34.

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

35.

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

Leoni, Tea

36.

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

37.

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

George, Boy

38.

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

Field, Eugene

39.

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

40.

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

Howard, Ron

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Fonda, Jane

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Johnson, Alva

47.

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

Marceau, Marcel

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.

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

Sinden, Donald

50.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin