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 on acting and actors   

"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. on acting and actors   

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

Fiske, Minnie on acting and actors   

"The best actors do not let the wheels show."

Fonda, Henry on acting and actors   

"A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming."

Fonda, Jane on acting and actors   

"You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for."

Fonda, Jane on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Forrest, Edwin on acting and actors   

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

Garland, Judy on acting and actors   

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

George, Boy on acting and actors   

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

Glass, George on acting and actors   

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

Goldblum, Jeff on acting and actors   

"Acting is happy agony."

Guiness, Sir Alec on acting and actors
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Half, Robert on acting and actors
7 fans of this quote   

"A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar -- you pretend it's not there."

Hannah, Daryl on acting and actors   

"They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness."

Hazlitt, William on acting and actors   

"We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all."

Hazlitt, William on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"Acting is the perfect idiot's profession."

Hepburn, Katharine on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Hepburn, Katharine on acting and actors   

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

Hepburn, Katharine on acting and actors   

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

Hitchcock, Alfred on acting and actors   

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

Howard, Ron on 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 on 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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Irons, Jeremy on acting and actors
3 fans of this quote   

"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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors
3 fans of this quote   

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

John, Elton on acting and actors   

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

Johnson, Alva on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"Actors are loved because they are unoriginal. Actors stick to their script. The unoriginal man is loved by the mediocrity because this kind of artistic expression is something to which the merest five-eighth can climb."

Kavanagh, Patrick on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!"

Lansbury, Angela on 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 on acting and actors   

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

Leoni, Tea on acting and actors