Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

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

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

Carrey, Jim

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

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

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

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

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.

Quinn, Anthony

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

Davis, Bette

10.

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

Goldblum, Jeff

11.

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

12.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

13.

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

Fonda, Jane

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

17.

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

Pacino, Al

18.

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

19.

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

Newman, Paul

20.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

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.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Field, Eugene

26.

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

Duras, Marguerite

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

32.

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

Fiske, Minnie

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

38.

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

Hannah, Daryl

39.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

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

Python, Monty

41.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

42.

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

43.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

44.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

45.

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

Garland, Judy

46.

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)

47.

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

48.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

49.

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.

50.

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

Richardson, Miranda