Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

Best Quotes about Acting and actors

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

Field, Eugene

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

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

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

Goldblum, Jeff

I have to act to live.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

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

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.

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

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

10.

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.

11.

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

Thomas, Jonathan Taylor

12.

Ah just act the way ah feel.

Presley, Elvis

13.

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

14.

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

Python, Monty

15.

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

Pacino, Al

16.

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

17.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

18.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

19.

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

20.

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

Wood, Elijah

21.

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

22.

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

Byron, Lord

23.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

24.

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

Sinden, Donald

25.

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

26.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

27.

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

George, Boy

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

32.

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

Diderot, Denis

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

37.

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

Welles, Orson

38.

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

Leoni, Tea

39.

Actors die so loud.

Miller, Henry

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

I'd prefer not to be the pretty thing in a film. It's such a bloody responsibility to look cute, because people know when you don't and they're like, They're trying to pass her off as the cute girl and she's looking like a bedraggled sack of potatoes.

Driver, Minnie

44.

I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.

Spacey, Kevin

45.

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

Glass, George

46.

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

Fiske, Minnie

47.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Rogers, Ginger

48.

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

Moore, Mary Tyler

49.

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

50.

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