Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

- Fonda, Henry

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Close, Glenn

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

Vaughan, Bill

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

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

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

Byron, Lord

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

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

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

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

10.

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

11.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

12.

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

Lansbury, Angela

13.

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

Field, Eugene

14.

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

John, Elton

15.

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

Howard, Ron

16.

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

17.

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

18.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

19.

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

Shearer, Norma

20.

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

Diderot, Denis

21.

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

22.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

23.

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

Fiske, Minnie

24.

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

25.

I don't get acting jobs because of my looks.

Baldwin, Alec

26.

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

Carrey, Jim

27.

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

Hannah, Daryl

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 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

30.

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

Half, Robert

31.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

32.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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.

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

35.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

36.

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

37.

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

Hazlitt, William

38.

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.

39.

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

40.

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

Sinden, Donald

41.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

42.

I was sitting in the looping studio late one night, and I had this epiphany that they weren't paying me for my acting, for God's sake, but to own me. And from then on, it became clear and an awful lot easier to deal with.

Lawless, Lucy

43.

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

44.

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

Barthes, Roland

45.

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

George, Boy

46.

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

47.

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

Duras, Marguerite

48.

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

49.

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

Leoni, Tea

50.

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