Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

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

Carrey, Jim

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

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

Moreau, Jeanne

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Newman, Paul

16.

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

17.

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

Leoni, Tea

18.

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

19.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

20.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

Hagen, Uta

21.

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

22.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

23.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

24.

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

Cusack, John

25.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

26.

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

George, Boy

27.

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

Spacey, Kevin

28.

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

29.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

30.

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

31.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

32.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

33.

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

Garland, Judy

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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.

37.

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

Fonda, Jane

38.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

39.

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

Johnson, Alva

40.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

41.

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

Fiske, Minnie

42.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

43.

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

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.

You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film -- you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.

Lewis, Daniel Day

46.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

47.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

Glass, George

50.

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