Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it.

- Huston, John

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

Johnson, Alva

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

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

Welles, Orson

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

Fonda, Henry

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

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead. [On his college registration experience]

Selleck, Tom

10.

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

11.

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

John, Elton

12.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

Newman, Paul

13.

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

Howard, Ron

14.

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

Shearer, Norma

15.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

16.

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.

Barkin, Ellen

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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

Cusack, John

20.

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

21.

I find myself fascinating.

Dreyfus, Richard

22.

I am the Fred Astaire of karate.

Damme, Jean-Claude Van

23.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

24.

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

Leoni, Tea

25.

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

Hitchcock, Alfred

26.

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

Vaughan, Bill

27.

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

Barthes, Roland

28.

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

29.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

Wilder, Thornton

30.

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

Davis, Bette

31.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

32.

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

33.

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

34.

In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.

Irving, Washington

35.

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

Forrest, Edwin

36.

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

37.

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

Pacino, Al

38.

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

Garland, Judy

39.

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

40.

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

41.

We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

46.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that. [On his acting techniques]

D'Onofrio, Vincent

47.

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

Byron, Lord

48.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

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