Motivational Quotes

Acting and actors

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

- Pacino, Al

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 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

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Redford, Robert

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

Garland, Judy

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

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

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

10.

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

Pacino, Al

11.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

12.

Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.

Moore, Roger

13.

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

14.

Acting is happy agony.

Guiness, Sir Alec

15.

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

Newman, Paul

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

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

Richardson, Miranda

19.

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

Shearer, Norma

20.

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

Cusack, John

21.

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

Brosnan, Pierce

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Woodard, Alfre

26.

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

Moreau, Jeanne

27.

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

Wood, Elijah

28.

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

Fiske, Minnie

29.

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

30.

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

Spacey, Kevin

31.

Actors often behave like children, and so we're taken for children. I want to be grown up.

Irons, Jeremy

32.

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

Half, Robert

33.

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

Howard, Ron

34.

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

Byron, Lord

35.

It's a business you go into because you're an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

Hepburn, Katharine

39.

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

Marceau, Marcel

40.

The most minor gifts and not a very high class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.

Hepburn, Katharine

41.

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

42.

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

George, Boy

43.

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

Davis, Bette

44.

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

Chaplin, Charlie

45.

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

46.

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

Johnson, Alva

47.

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

48.

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

49.

An actor is only merchandise.

Chow Yun-Fat

50.

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

Amiel, Henri Frederic