Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Actors are one family over the entire world.

- Woodard, Alfre

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Hannah, Daryl

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

Sinden, Donald

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

Duras, Marguerite

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

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

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

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

Welles, Orson

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

10.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

11.

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

12.

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

Marceau, Marcel

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Glass, George

17.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

18.

Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Huxley, Aldous

19.

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

Davis, Bette

20.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

21.

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

22.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

23.

A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

24.

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

25.

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

Spacey, Kevin

26.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

27.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

28.

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

Half, Robert

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Hazlitt, William

32.

I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.

Byron, Lord

33.

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

Wood, Elijah

34.

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

35.

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

Johnson, Alva

36.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Python, Monty

40.

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

41.

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

42.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

43.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

44.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

45.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

46.

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

47.

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

Fonda, Jane

48.

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

Lansbury, Angela

49.

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

Diderot, Denis

50.

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