Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions. — Sanford Meisner
Acting is not that far from mental disease: An actor works on splitting his character into others. It is like a kind of schizophrenia. — Vittorio Gassman
Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be. — Helen Mirren
Actors should arouse a sense of wonder because of their ability to exceed what the spectators can envision ever being able to do. — Jerzy Grotowski
I love acting. It is so much more real than life. — Oscar Wilde
It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living — Conor Oberst
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing. — Ralph Richardson
Revolutions are brought about by men, by men who think as men of action and act as men of thought. — Kwame Nkrumah
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. — Haile Selassie
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.
Be Prepared... the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise. — Robert Baden-Powell
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. — Plato
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus
Speak with honesty, think with sincerity, act with integrity.
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. — Alexander Hamilton
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. — Leo Buscaglia
To force a human being to learn according to a set curriculum is a dictatorial act. — Muammar al-Gaddafi
The revolution and women's liberation go together. We do not talk of women's emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky. — Thomas Sankara
Actors And Acting Quotes
The inner life of the [imagination], and not the personal and tiny experiential resources of the actor, should be elaborated on the stage and shown to the audience. This life is rich and revealing for the audience as well as for the actor himself. — Michael Chekhov
An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so he must be willing to accept all experiences that life can offer. — Marlon Brando
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. — Lee Strasberg
There are seven days in the week and someday isn't one of them.
The way I saw it was, if I had the built-in following and the audience, but I also had the skill set of acting, that would shoot me to the top. Because there's so many good actors. There's so many good-looking people. But the X factor now is social media. — Jake Paul
One of the things I like about my profession, and that I find healthy, is that one constantly has to break oneself to pieces. — Liv Ullmann
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest. — Kate Winslet
The number one thing I am earnestly attracted to is intelligence. Writers are thus the pinnacle of intelligence. While actors are great and awesome, writers literally create new worlds from scratch. What is sexier than that? Personally, I don't know why every person out there isn't dating a writer. — Rachel Bloom
I always wanted to be an actor, but with a speech impediment it's kind of tough. I decided to roll the dice and take an acting class, which was very, very nerve-wracking... my stomach would just be in knots. — Nicholas Brendon
I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to be a good guy, a bad guy, a victim, an abuser. There are all kinds of people in the world, and playing them is what acting is all about. — Kevin Bacon
Directing Actors Quotes
My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful. — Satyajit Ray
Terrorism is a tactic in which the primary objective is to produce fear, rather than direct harm. Terrorist attacks are, first and foremost, psychological operations designed to alter behavior amongst the terrorized in a way that the actors believe will serve them. — Bret Weinstein
Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc...) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create — Robert Bresson
We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct. — Beth Henley
Directing has only increased my admiration and respect for what it is that actors do. — Eric Stoltz
Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator. — Laurence Olivier
Kindness is not a business. True kindness expects nothing in return and should never act with conditions.
I've never been a puppeteer, I conceive and I write and I design and I direct. And not just puppets. I direct actors, I direct dancers, I direct singers, I direct films. I also direct puppeteers. I'm really a theatre maker, but there's not a word for that. — Julie Taymor
Showtime has given new, young filmmakers - black, white, across the board - an opportunity to make films, as well as actors who want to cross over into directing. — Morris Chestnut
Don Siegel last advice to me was 'Don't short yourself.' He said the tendency is when an actor's directing is to kind of you want to work on everybody else but you're going to short yourself. He said, take the time to do a good job with yourself so that you're satisfied with it. — Clint Eastwood
I've acted with all types, I've directed all types. What you want to understand as a director, is what actors have to offer. They'll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done. — Ron Howard
Theatre Acting Quotes
Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you. — Constantin Stanislavski
I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. — Peter Brook
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it. — Constantin Stanislavski
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
You can't learn to act unless you're criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you'll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done. — Sanford Meisner
An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. — Sanford Meisner
The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting. — Sanford Meisner
Dream Big. Start small. Act now.
In the theatre we reach out and touch the past through literature, history and memory so that we might receive and relive significant and relevant human qualities in the present and then pass them on to future generations. — Anne Bogart
An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents. — Alec Guinness
I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me. — Kate Bosworth
Acting is the art of speaking in a loud, clear voice and the avoidance of bumping into the furniture. — Alfred Lunt
Acting In Movies Quotes
Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. — Charles Bukowski
I'm a frustrated actor. My ... goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I'm going to try to break his record. — Stan Lee
Stop being a supporting player in the movie that is your life. Become the movie star. This is a hero's journey you have embarked upon. It's high time you start acting like it. — Rich Roll
Carry out a randon act of kindness, with no expectations of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.
I'd like to be a superhero or a supervillain in a huge action movie. I want to play, like, the Joker or something like that. — Jake Paul
After 'Prom Night' I did two movies where I was playing a prostitute. I gravitate towards characters that have some sort of inner turmoil or some sort of character arc. That's the great thing about acting, so many different things and being really diverse in your choices. — Brittany Snow
I had given thought to acting, but I never really had a good enough opportunity or a character who made sense and paralleled my life a little bit. I feel like I'm one of the poster boys for a bad guy in a movie. I feel like I'm a good person to play a bad guy in a movie. I can say that. — Gucci Mane
I work constantly but I work at a lot of different things. You know, I run a theater company in New York, I direct plays, act in plays, in movies, so I try to keep it eclectic. — Philip Seymour Hoffman
I think the best roles are in dark movies. It's roles that aren't you. It's fun playing someone that's not me. If I'm playing me all the time, then it's not acting. It's just being yourself. — Chloe Grace Moretz
Life's generally artless ... but it does get these occasional hard-ons for plot. It connects things, nefariously, behind your back, and before you know it you're in the final act of a lousy movie. — Glen Duncan
Stage Acting Quotes
There are six stages to knowledge: Firstly: Asking questions in a good manner. Secondly: Remaining quiet and listening attentively. Thirdly: Understanding well. Fourthly: Memorising. Fifthly: Teaching. Sixthly- and it is its fruit: Acting upon the knowledge and keeping to its limits. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
People do complain about the way I act on stage... They think on stage I act too arrogant, too self-obsessed, solecistic, self-contained, synonyms. — Bo Burnham
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. — William Shakespeare
I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting. — Miranda Richardson
Art is violent. To be decisive is violent. ... To place a chair at a partial angle on the stage destroys every other possible choice, every other option. — Anne Bogart
We are setting the stage for war, Netanyahu is setting the path for Armageddon. America thinks that the presence of our offshore naval power will act as a deterrent to the Turks, Iranians, and others in the region that might otherwise become involved in a confrontation with Israel. — Douglas Macgregor
When the drama of history is over, Jesus Christ will stand alone on the stage. All the great figures of history ... will realize that they have been but actors in a drama produced by another. — Helmut Thielicke
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. — Ayn Rand
If I do a film and have to get naked, that tends to dictate how often I go to the gym. Acting in 'Richard II' on stage was a huge physical workout, so I ended up more toned than I normally am. — Eddie Redmayne
Stage acting is for me the basic form of acting. If you make films all the time, you have so few possibilities to rehearse. And it's important to rehearse, because it gives you the possibility to try things which are not good! — Erland Josephson
Acting And Performing Quotes
A Christian reveals true humility by showing the gentleness of Christ, by being always ready to help others, by speaking kind words and performing unselfish acts, which elevate and ennoble the most sacred message that has come to our world. — Ellen G. White
Rate your individual acts as good or bad, if you like. Seek to perform as many good ones, and as few bad ones, as possible. — Oliver Burkeman
Our conviction at BlackRock is that companies perform better when they are deliberate about their role in society and act in the interests of their employees, customers, communities, and their shareholders. — Larry Fink
Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking. — Ramana Maharshi
If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ...its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing. — Leo Tolstoy
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. — Marcel Duchamp
I got an M.F.A. in acting from NYU, and part of our training is to learn how to use swords in combat situations in a performance and Shakespeare plays where you have to fight. — Danai Gurira
The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful. — Viola Spolin
Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. — Martha Graham
A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment. — Maxwell Maltz
Acting Classes Quotes
When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that. — James Earl Jones
I never took acting classes, but I knew I could do it based on the skill with which I lied to my parents on a regular basis! — Ryan Reynolds
I joined an acting class in my junior year in high school. I'd always wanted to try it. — Rainn Wilson
There's a lot of good rappers in England at the moment. There's a lot of good dance acts. A lot of good, young guitar acts. I think a lot of groups came from that dole culture of the late 80's/early 90's - it's not as easy now. I think there's a dearth of working class bands. — Ian Brown
An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power. — Glenn Greenwald
I am just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City and my grandparents were wheat farmers. I thought painting, acting, directing and photography were all part of being an artist. I have made my money that way. And I have had some fun. It's not been a bad life. — Dennis Hopper
When we started off, we wanted the girls, the cocaine, the fur coats. It wasn't like it was an act; it was almost like working-class people winning the pools. We went bananas. — Noel Gallagher
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. — Thomas Paine
I learned much more about acting from philosophy courses, psychology courses, history and anthropology than I ever learned in acting class. — Tim Robbins
Great Actors Quotes
Preparing a character is the opposite of building-it is a demolishing, removing brick by brick everything in the actor's muscles, ideas and inhibitions that stands between him and the part, until one day, with a great rush of air, the character invades his every pore. — Peter Brook
I'm living every ten-year-old boy's fantasy. The other day, Chris and I had this big scene where we had to pull out our guns, and I was thinking, 'Here we are in New York City - a place where every actor wants to be - and we are literally playing cops and robbers. How great is that?' — Mariska Hargitay
An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal - falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox. — Francois Truffaut
I like the sensibility of Australian film a lot and the crews are fantastic. Great characters, wonderful people and no line between - I think in Hollywood they have this line between actors and crew a lot, and that just didn't exist, which I really appreciated. — Barbara Hershey
If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't. — Steve Coogan
My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them. — Peter Facinelli
When I played Robin Hood, I knew the great role was Alan Rickman's and it didn't bother me. I always think that leading actors should be called the best supporting actors. — Kevin Costner
I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol. — Steven Seagal
Drinking coffee is kinda my major hobby... the great benefit of being an actor is you have all this spare time. My ideal is just hanging out with people - I think I am innately lazy. — Craig Parker
Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite. — Ellen Terry
Acting Teachers Quotes
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty. — Chief Joseph
When I was a freshman in high school, my drama teacher, an incredible, inspirational genius, the guy who got me into acting, he encouraged me to get the lead in a musical. They didn't have any guys. — Casey Affleck
The first acting thing I ever did was my senior year I decided not to play a sport in the Spring and, in that Spring B.J. Novak who went to school with me, asked if I'd be in this show that was a parody of all the teachers in the school, 'sure!' That was the first acting thing I did. — John Krasinski
We have seen that, in another unfunded mandate, the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, which created tougher standards, and we all support that, but Congress did not provide the money to attract and hire the best teachers. — Bob Filner
Today, in the age of standardized testing, thinking and acting, reason and judgment have been thrown out the window just as teachers are increasingly being deskilled and forced to act as semi-robotic technicians good for little more than teaching for the test. — Henry Giroux
Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman
Simply see that you are at the center of the universe, and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body. When you perceive that an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth. — Lao Tzu
The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. — Stella Adler
I got into acting my junior year of high school. We got a new hot drama teacher and I was like 'Alright, I'll try drama.' — Miles Teller
I went through two schools of acting but I learned more about acting from meditating and from my marshall arts teacher. — Forest Whitaker
It is highly possible that what is called 'talented behavior' is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. From this point of view, it is in the increasing of the individual capacity for experiencing that the untold potentiality of a personality can be evoked. — Viola Spolin
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. — Simone Weil
I love learning new things from the other actors. — Sadie Sink
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to fully express emotion. — Kate Reid
The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis. — Marlon Brando
If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. — Jack Lemmon
Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society. — Paul Newman
Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience. — Jean-Paul Sartre
If, as an actor, you allow yourself to be cocooned from the boring pin-pricks of day-to-day existence - like standing in a queue at the butcher's or any of the other dreary little events that we all have in our daily lives - you begin to lose your lifeline to what people are. And if you lose that, you eventually lose the ability to act. — Glenda Jackson
I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work. — Meryl Streep
I come from an era, in my world, where you just had to define yourself as who you are and what you do. I happen to be an actor. I happen to be someone that loves to act, that also likes music, that also likes to speak, and that also has an opinion. — Idris Elba
Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. — Aldous Huxley
I have never wanted to be typecast, one of those actors who plays a variation on a one-note theme. So just as I enjoy playing a wide variety of characters, from good to bad to ugly to cute - so I have enjoyed of late working in film and television, as well as in theatres of various sizes and shapes. — Ian Mckellen
The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. — W. H. Auden
I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful. — Anthony Hopkins
When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best. — Michael Caine
Most scripts are written to be green lit. They're not written to be acted. And a lot of writers with the greatest intention in the world don't write for actors. They don't understand the architecture of what an actor needs to get from point A to point B. — Laura Linney
[on whether he harbored any resentment at his forced retirement from the stage after he was fired by Britain's National Theater] I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare... An actor must act. — Laurence Olivier
Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it. — Elaine Dundy
Period films to me are very often alienating to the audience. There's very often a formality. A staunchy quality to them that comes from the misenscene. It also comes from the performances of the actors, because they're acting Victorian which really means that they're just acting the way they've seen previous actors act Victorian. — Christopher Nolan
The more that I can work in different mediums, the more I can grow, and learn from different actors and different types of actors and directors and different styles of acting and build a tool box. — Christina Ricci
I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet. — Robert Redford
I went to NYU for acting, for six years. I thought acting was the easy way out or in because I didn't put in enough effort in school, being a crazy kid in college. But, I was good at it, so that was the other side of it. I would love to direct. What I've learned from being on set is more how to deal with actors than even the visual part of it all. — Drea De Matteo
If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft. — Philip Seymour Hoffman
I don't think the concept of "directing actors" exists in the sense that if you get what you order from an actor you'll always get bad acting. Every actor is scared just like a regular person. — Pirjo Honkasalo
The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings. — Stella Adler
When I first started out on the soap, I was more theatrical, like a stage actor, a little bigger than life. As I did more and more Love Of Life, I became more natural. I learned the value of underplaying. It was a great training ground for me. There was a big difference in my style of acting from where I started with that show and where I ended, and where I ended was a good jumping-off point for doing nighttime television and movies. — Ray Wise
I want to establish a wide range and play all kinds of parts. It's that sort of acting career I really respect. I like to turn a sharp left from whatever I've done before because that keeps me awake. That's why I want to be an actor - I don't want to play endless variations on one character. — Tim Curry
When you're a working actor and you're happy to be one, you can't focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself. — Olivia Wilde
It's funny, when you become an actor and you're successful, they don't want to talk about acting any more. 'Hey let's talk about that stuff you were fired from.' — Nicholas Brendon
As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting. — Stanley Tucci
So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting. — Ice T
Now that was one thing, but from an actor's point of view, this poor young man, crying from the moment I opened the door to the moment he left. Now if an actor did that they would say he's over-acting. — Rod Steiger
At that age, filming Harry Potter, I never contemplated. I just went in there and did my acting. I never thought, "What's the character actually feeling here? What's he trying to get across?" And never looked at it from that classically trained actor's point of view. And so when Jason Isaacs started throwing up these ideas, I thought, "Whoa. What an interesting way to look at acting." Which is why, again, I would do theater. — Matthew Lewis
I wasn't working much. So I focused on studying, and I really learned what it means to be an actor. And here I was on Jonny Quest,working with all these great people from back in the golden age of Hollywood, who came up doing radio. These were journeymen, working actors. It made me proud, and gave me some insight into what acting was really about if you weren't a star. — Tim Matheson
I learn a lot as a director from acting in other people's films and just in general. I want to try and be as involved in the art of filmmaking as possible. I feel that the only way to really do that is to take on as many roles as possible, whether it be as an actor, an editor, a director, a cinematographer. Basically, I like to help and be involved, so anything anybody asks me to do, my first reaction is to say "Yes." — Joe Swanberg
My belief about performance capture is that it's a technology which allows actors to play extraordinary characters. But from an acting perspective, I've never drawn a distinction between playing a conventional, live action character and playing a role in a performance capture suit. And from a purely acting point-of-view, I don't believe there should be a special Oscar category because I think it sort of muddies the waters in a way. — Andy Serkis
TV is longer form, and that's sometimes a positive, and sometimes a more challenging thing. As an actor, you want to be able to have your character develop or transform in some way. When you're acting on a show over the course of multiple seasons, you get to watch a character really grow and change, and go from one place to an entirely other place. — Cameron Monaghan
Sometimes you're watching a great film actor, and if you stand 10 feet away from them, you're like, "God, they're terrible. They're not doing anything." And then you see the close-up and it's so nuanced and so much expression is happening. They were acting for that camera and for no one else. — Finn Wittrock
In Conclusion
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