Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

- Fonda, Jane

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Goldblum, Jeff

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

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

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

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

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

Shearer, Norma

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

Marceau, Marcel

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Carrey, Jim

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

Barthes, Roland

16.

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

Wood, Elijah

17.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Shaw, George Bernard

18.

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

19.

All men practice the actor's art.

Petron

20.

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

Fiske, Minnie

21.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

22.

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

23.

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

Leoni, Tea

24.

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

25.

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

29.

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

30.

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

Half, Robert

31.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

32.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Ulrich, Skeet

33.

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

Davis, Bette

34.

The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.

Campbell, Thomas

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Sinden, Donald

38.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

39.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

40.

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

Forrest, Edwin

41.

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

42.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

43.

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

44.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. Before going into a fire, there's the same surge of adrenaline you get just before the camera rolls.

Buscemi, Steve

45.

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

Baldwin, Alec

46.

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

Glass, George

47.

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

Vaughan, Bill

48.

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

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.

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

Cusack, John