Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

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

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.

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

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

Welles, Orson

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

Goldblum, Jeff

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

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

Close, Glenn

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

10.

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

Lansbury, Angela

11.

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

Huston, John

12.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

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.

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

15.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

16.

Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes. [On filming MacHale's Navy]

Campbell, Bruce

17.

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

18.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

19.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

20.

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

21.

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

Python, Monty

22.

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

23.

If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.

Vaughan, Bill

24.

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

25.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

26.

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

George, Boy

27.

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

28.

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

29.

The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

Cervantes, Miguel De

30.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

31.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

32.

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

Fiske, Minnie

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Marceau, Marcel

36.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

37.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

38.

She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity -- and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.

Duras, Marguerite

39.

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

40.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

41.

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

42.

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

43.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

44.

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

45.

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

Carrey, Jim

46.

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

Spacey, Kevin

47.

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

48.

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

Fonda, Jane

49.

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

Cusack, John

50.

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