Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

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

Fonda, Jane

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

Pacino, Al

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

Wood, Elijah

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

Barrymore, Ethel

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

Half, Robert

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

Dundy, Elaine

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)

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

Chaplin, Charlie

10.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

11.

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

12.

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

Leoni, Tea

13.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

14.

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

Cusack, John

15.

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

16.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

17.

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

Byron, Lord

18.

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

Python, Monty

19.

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

Barthes, Roland

20.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

21.

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

22.

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

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.

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

25.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

26.

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

27.

The actor's popularity is evanescent; applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.

Forrest, Edwin

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Hazlitt, William

31.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

32.

An actress must never lose her ego--without it she has no talent.

Shearer, Norma

33.

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

Terry, Ellen

34.

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

35.

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

Marceau, Marcel

36.

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

37.

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

John, Elton

38.

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

Davis, Bette

39.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

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

Howard, Ron

41.

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

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.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

44.

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

Richardson, Miranda

45.

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

Johnson, Alva

46.

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

47.

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

Duras, Marguerite

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine