Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Sinden, Donald

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Wood, Elijah

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

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

George, Boy

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

Lansbury, Angela

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

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

Johnson, Alva

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

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

Goldblum, Jeff

10.

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

Fiske, Minnie

11.

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

Sinden, Donald

12.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

13.

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

14.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

15.

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

Marceau, Marcel

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

25.

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

Leoni, Tea

26.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

27.

The actor searches vainly for the sound of a vanished tradition, and critic and audience follow suit. We have lost all sense of ritual and ceremony -- whether it be connected with Christmas, birthdays or funerals -- but the words remain with us and old impulses stir in the marrow. We feel we should have rituals, we should do something about getting them and we blame the artists for not finding them for us. So the artist sometimes attempts to find new rituals with only his imagination as his source: he imitates the outer form of ceremonies, pagan or baroque, unfortunately adding his own trapping -- the result is rarely convincing. And after the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.

Brook, Peter (Stephen Paul)

28.

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

Diderot, Denis

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

Brecht, Bertolt

33.

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

34.

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

Shearer, Norma

35.

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

36.

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

Glass, George

37.

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

Welles, Orson

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

Jackson, Glenda

41.

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

42.

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

Richardson, Miranda

43.

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

Davis, Bette

44.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

45.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

46.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

47.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic

48.

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

Howard, Ron

49.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

50.

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