Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

Goldblum, Jeff

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

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

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

Leoni, Tea

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

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

Welles, Orson

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

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

Quinn, Anthony

10.

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

11.

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes.

Driver, Minnie

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

15.

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

George, Boy

16.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

17.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

18.

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

Garland, Judy

19.

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

Close, Glenn

20.

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

Cusack, John

21.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

22.

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

Diderot, Denis

23.

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

24.

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

Lansbury, Angela

25.

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

26.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

27.

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

Spacey, Kevin

28.

The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event.

Barthes, Roland

29.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

30.

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

31.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

32.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

33.

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

34.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

35.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Glass, George

39.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

40.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

41.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

42.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

43.

I want to do a musical movie. Like Evita, but with good music.

John, Elton

44.

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

Howard, Ron

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

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)

48.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

49.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

50.

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