Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

- Hitchcock, Alfred

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.

Brando, Marlon

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 have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it's been pretty fun.

Hunter, Holly

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

Fiske, Minnie

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

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

Sinden, Donald

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

Barthes, Roland

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

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

Quinn, Anthony

10.

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

11.

You are not in business to be popular.

Alley, Kirstie

12.

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

Fonda, Jane

13.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

14.

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

George, Boy

15.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

16.

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky. [On being an actor]

Ford, Harrison

17.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

18.

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

19.

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

Duras, Marguerite

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Richardson, Miranda

23.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

24.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

25.

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

26.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

27.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

28.

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

29.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

30.

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

Byron, Lord

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Half, Robert

42.

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else.

Davis Jr., Sammy

43.

I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Hitchcock, Alfred

44.

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

Leoni, Tea

45.

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

Vaughan, Bill

46.

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

Field, Eugene

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Close, Glenn