Quotes about acting and actors

"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 on acting and actors
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"You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film -- you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up."

Lewis, Daniel Day on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch."

Malkovich, John on acting and actors   

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

Marceau, Marcel on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"Actors die so loud."

Miller, Henry on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Moore, Mary Tyler on acting and actors   

"Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised."

Moore, Roger on acting and actors   

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

Moreau, Jeanne on acting and actors   

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

Newman, Paul on acting and actors   

"Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why."

Olin, Lena on acting and actors   

"I have to act to live."

Olivier, Sir Lawrence on acting and actors   

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

Pacino, Al on acting and actors   

"Elizabeth Taylor is pre-feminist woman. This is the source of her continuing greatness and relevance. She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary clich?. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all men's relations with women."

Paglia, Camille on acting and actors
3 fans of this quote   

"She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B."

Parker, Dorothy on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"All men practice the actor's art."

Petron on acting and actors   

"Ah just act the way ah feel."

Presley, Elvis on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

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

Python, Monty on acting and actors   

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

Quinn, Anthony on acting and actors   

"I must say that acting was good training for the political life that lay ahead of us."

Reagan, Nancy on acting and actors   

"A lot of what acting is paying attention."

Redford, Robert on acting and actors   

"Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion."

Reid, Thomas on acting and actors   

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

Richardson, Miranda on acting and actors   

"There are no small parts. Only small actors."

Rogers, Ginger on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me."

Shaw, George Bernard on acting and actors   

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

Shearer, Norma on acting and actors   

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

Sinden, Donald on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors   

"You know how in high school you do these plays and people come up after the show and they're really excited for you? Well, that's what's happening to me right now."

Sorvino, Mira on acting and actors   

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

Spacey, Kevin on acting and actors   

"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 on acting and actors