Film actors reach a certain level, but they don't get beyond it unless they work in the theater. — Shirley Knight
Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be. — Helen Mirren
All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists. — Stephen Sondheim
To me, theater is the mecca; if you really love to act, that's where it's the most fun, by a long shot. — Scott Caan
Acting in theatre or television or screen is only for the irrecoverably diseased, those so smitten with the need that there is no choice. — Michael Shurtleff
Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place. — Martha Graham
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
Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good. — Terrence Mann
You need three things in the theatre - the play, the actors and the audience, and each must give something. — Kenneth Haigh
I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me. — Kate Bosworth
There is a kind of classlessness in the theater. The rehearsal pianist, the head carpenter, the stage manager, the star of the show-all are family. — John Kander
An actor without techies is a naked person standing in the dark trying to emote. A techie without actors is a person with marketable skills. — Mark Leslie
It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience. — Christian Bale
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 think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium. — Christopher Eccleston
Short Actors Quotes
Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances. — Sanford Meisner
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it. — Constantin Stanislavski
You'll never see any two good actors approach a role in the same way. — Constantin Stanislavski
I want to be one of the biggest social media stars ever to become an actor. — Jake Paul
We're improv comedians, we're not necessarily actors, we don't come across that way. — Joe Gatto
A magician is only an actor - an actor pretending to be a magician. — Harry Houdini
Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors. — Constantin Stanislavski
You have film actors doing TV, rap stars doing TV, with everyone kind of crossing the line. — Anthony Michael Hall
When I was a kid, if a guy got killed in a western movie I always wondered who got his horse. — George Carlin
Actors Image Quotes
I have always been a Malibu Man, like all actors. — Nick Mancuso
If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent. — Elijah Wood
You grow up in a Sicilian household, becoming an actor is not a big leap. — Vincent Schiavelli
Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up. — Alfred Hitchcock
Find in yourself those human things which are universal. — Sanford Meisner
When an actor marries an actress they both fight for the mirror.
Stage Actors 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
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
There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor? — Mary Astor
The world of chemical reactions is like a stage, on which scene after scene is ceaselessly played. The actors on it are the elements. — Clemens Winkler
This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic. — Carl Jung
I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that. — Campbell Scott
A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist. — Konstantin Stanislavisky
A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist. — Constantin Stanislavski
Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws. — Constantin Stanislavski
An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays. — Arthur Lowe
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
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
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
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
Acting is the art of speaking in a loud, clear voice and the avoidance of bumping into the furniture. — Alfred Lunt
There's nothing more boring than unintelligent actors, because all they have to talk about is themselves and acting. There have to be other things. — Tim Robbins
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
Film 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
The thing about film-making is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own cheques, be responsible. — Tom Cruise
A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them. — Renny Harlin
There is a strange pecking order among actors. Theatre actors look down on film actors, who look down on TV actors. Thank God for reality shows, or we wouldn't have anybody to look down on. — George Clooney
Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American. — Renny Harlin
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
Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens. — Satyajit Ray
I'm an actor, and I don't look at myself as providing comic relief. I have done diverse and dark roles such as a psycho, murderer, and others in films such as 'Don', 'Eklavya' and '3 Idiots.' — Boman Irani
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. — Kevin Kline
To me if there's an achievement to lighting and photography in a film it's because nothing stands out, it all works as a piece. And you feel that these actors are in this situation and the audience is not thrown by a pretty picture or by bad lighting. — Roger Deakins
Actors And Acting Quotes
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. — Lee Strasberg
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
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
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
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
For minority actors, developing our own projects has to be the eventual path. We have a lot of stories to tell and a really unique voice. But none of that is going to be heard as long as we're just the hired hands, acting. — Jimmy Smits
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to fully express emotion. — Kate Reid
Movie Actors Quotes
Get real. You are not the star of the movie. Most of what happens around you isn’t about you at all. There are infinite numbers of other movies. In those, if you feature at all, you’re just a supporting actor. It would really help your happiness if you started to look at your life that way. — Mo Gawdat
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
I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book. — Robert Redford
The big-budget blockbuster is becoming one of the most dependable forms of filmmaking. — Peter Jackson
When you do an animated movie - at least the ones that I've been a part of - you never see any of the other actors. It's all done separately with headphones in a voice booth. — Steve Carell
Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip. — Tom Berenger
I don't watch the movies I make, so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me. — Kevin Bacon
But I don't have such a strong desire to need to get away from filmmaking. — Mike Figgis
Whether it is the cavemen in the caves thousands of years ago, Shakespeare plays, television, movies and books, stories and characters take us on a journey. All I do is tell those stories without scripts and without actors. — Mark Burnett
One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie. — David Oyelowo
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
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
Within the various acts of the ecodrama should be included scenes in which men's and women's roles come to center stage and scenes in which Nature 'herself' is an actress. — Carolyn Merchant
Actors And Actresses Quotes
I think it's even harder because I think as always, Hollywood is sort of glamour central for the world, and the entire world looks to it for not only entertainment, but the whole idea of the youth factor and youth being sold to our culture via young actors and actresses. — Anthony Michael Hall
I like every single actor or actress in the world, because we never know what the conditions are like when they are working. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt and root for them like a psychotic sports fan — Judd Nelson
I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That's why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again. — Judi Dench
Sure I faced the troubles and challenges that most actors and actresses face until they get noticed, but I was always confident of myself and my capabilities. — Christine Lahti
The political arena is the funniest.They [politicians] are always pretending to change, but they never change. They're the best actors and actresses in the world. They've always been hilarious since the beginning of time. — Paul Mooney
Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil. — W. C. Fields
Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there. — Meryl Streep
Actors and actresses who say they never go to see their own pictures are talking through their hats. You don't have to be a Freud to know that the most fascinating person in the world - actors or anybody - is yourself. — Paulette Goddard
I am admiring of my fellow peers, black filmmakers and black actors and actresses. — Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Speaking as an actress, I wish all actors would be more like Duke Wayne. And speaking as a person, it would be nice if all people could be honest and as genuine as he is. This is a real man. — Maureen O'Hara
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
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
A bunch of six nicer people, I couldn’t be more fortunate to call my family — from Lee Pace, who is so dear. When I first saw him, I said he’s like a Gary Cooper. He’s bashful, he’s shy, he’s sensitive, he’s a great actor, he’s beautiful, he’s delicious. — Ellen Greene
Theatre Quotes
Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it. — Augusto Boal
Drama is exposure; it is confrontation; it is contradiction and it leads to analysis, construction, recognition and eventually to an awakening of understanding. — Peter Brook
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it. — Konstantin Stanislavisky
It is not theatre that is indispensable, but something quite different. To cross the frontiers between you and me. — Jerzy Grotowski
The work of rehearsal is looking for meaning and then making it meaningful. — Peter Brook
Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism. — Alan Jay Lerner
We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself. — Bertolt Brecht
Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. — Rudyard Kipling
In my freshman year in high school, I went to the only public high school in Boston with a theatre program. — Donnie Wahlberg
Character Actors Quotes
Every animator is really an actor performing in slow motion, living the character a drawing at a time. — John Lasseter
I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood. — Paul Newman
The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I'm known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows. — Dan Castellaneta
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
I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen. — Keenen Ivory Wayans
Although there was a screenplay, the actors never knew what questions I was going to ask them, and all of my character's voice-over narration and scenes were added after the fact. — Griffin Dunne
It is scary for an actor when you get hired as a lead. No matter what the plot is, it is your job to do something interesting enough to make them want to get inside the lead character's head. — Tom Selleck
The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts. — Alla Nazimova
I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off. — Donald E. Westlake
There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier. — Matthew Macfadyen
Of course, if you have thought up to now that an actor relies merely on inspiration you will have to change your mind. Talent without work is nothing more than raw unfinished material. — Constantin Stanislavski
Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition. — Sanford Meisner
The more we understand what is happening in the world, the more frustrated we often become, for our knowledge leads to feelings of powerlessness. We feel that we are living in a world in which the citizen has become a mere spectator or a forced actor, and that our personal experience is politically useless and our political will a minor illusion. — C. Wright Mills
The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true. — Hedy Lamarr
An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego. — Sir Alec Guinness
You know, the period of World War I and the Roaring Twenties were really just about the same as today. You worked, and you made a living if you could, and you tired to make the best of things. For an actor or a dancer, it was no different then than today. It was a struggle. — James Cagney
An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego. — Alec Guinness
I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me. — Tim McGraw
There's editing, and scripts to read and edit, and casting, and all the elements of production that just sort of take up the normal downtime that you would have as an actor. So there's not a lot of that for me. — Richard Dean Anderson
I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses. — Steven Soderbergh
All these social media sites allow us to confuse truth and popularity. That has to be fixed. Because every normal citizen has a right to know what is factual versus what is amplified by good actors or bad actors. — Chamath Palihapitiya
You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else's script. — John Taylor Gatto
My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, "If you want to do that, fine." When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, "Fine, but study welding just in case." — Robin Williams
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
The balcony is a metaphor for a mental and emotional place of perspective, calm, and self-control. If life is a stage and we are all actors on that stage, then the balcony is a place from which we can see the entire play unfolding with greater clarity. To observe ourselves, it is valuable to go to the balcony at all times, and especially before, during, and after any problematic conversation or negotiation. — William Ury
The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind. — Stella Adler
In Conclusion
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