A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly. — Kevin Bacon
A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have. — Natasha Richardson
Communication is the key, and it's one thing I had to learn-to talk to the actors. I was so involved with the visual and technical aspects that I would forget about the actors. — Steve Buscemi
Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed. — Elia Kazan
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
An actor really suffers when the director isn't prepared because you start running out of time for the shoot and then have to do it fast. — Carol Kane
You need someone to tell you how to do things like hitting your marks, or driving a car so it looks right or getting out of a car so it doesn't take a million years of screen time. — Gary Cole
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. — John Huston
Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes. — John Ford
When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.' — Alfred Hitchcock
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
The best actors instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it. — Christopher Nolan
I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium. — Christopher Eccleston
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. — Lee Strasberg
Short Directing Actors Quotes
I would never assume to tell another actor how to do his job! — Joseph Morgan
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard. — Billy Wilder
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing. — Ralph Richardson
Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances. — Sanford Meisner
Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip top if you must, but take the step.
As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk. — Casey Neistat
Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined... — Henry David Thoreau
When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. — Carl Rogers
Self-control is strength. Calmness is mastery. You have to get to a point where your mood doesn't shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else. Don't allow others to control the direction of your life. Don't allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence.
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there. — Zig Ziglar
If you think down, you will go down. If you think up, you will go up. You’ll always travel in the direction of your thinking. — T. D. Jakes
The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction. — Maria Montessori
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
I'd love to direct a film, but I don't think I have the temperament for it. I'm very hyper, and I want things to be done ASAP. If I turn director, I might end up killing my actors. — Shilpa Shetty
I think the success of a film is very important to an actor. It depends on how many people go to watch your movies; the more the merrier. Nobody wants to do a film for five people. You work so hard that millions of people watch the movie; this is directly related to box office success. — Rani Mukerji
I think that directing is the ultimate martyred task of filmmaking, that it has nobility to it. It takes three years to make a film, for the most part. I think it requires the attentiveness of a mother hen. — Diane Lane
When I started acting, my mom said, "If you want to go to film school and eventually direct, being on set is probably the best film school in the world." I'm incredibly grateful for the career I've had, but I was an actor to be a part of movies and TV, not the other way around. — Jay Baruchel
I stopped doing that [photojournalism] and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money. Even for a cheap movie, you need film stock and equipment and actors. — Curtis Hanson
The first film I directed (Explicit Ills), I did when I was like 27 years old. I had been an actor for a certain amount of time, and then I was like, "I want to start directing." — Mark Webber
There is an established tradition of actors directing films that have a particular, personal meaning for them - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and most recently George Clooney to name a few. Remarkably, their films share an unusually high percentage of being very good. — Steven Van Zandt
I have directed good actors and have gone through the process which is more detailed in theater in a way. You have to get people to stay for two or three hours in a performance. They need more talk and rehearsal than in films. — Julie Taymor
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
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
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
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
Acting From Actors Quotes
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it. — Constantin Stanislavski
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 that far from mental disease: An actor works on splitting his character into others. It is like a kind of schizophrenia. — Vittorio Gassman
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
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
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
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
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
Casting Directors Quotes
I also get fed up with the fact that casting agents and directors have this impression of me as being frail and petite. I find it very patronizing. I'm quite beefy and strong. I was a gymnast in school and I have lots of muscles. — Helena Bonham Carter
Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view. — Steven Spielberg
I randomly went to a casting session in my hometown in North Carolina, and the casting director introduced me to my manager. I really lucked into it! — Maddie Hasson
I often go to lunch meetings with my agent, a gallerist or a casting director, but if not, I stay at home and prepare my own food because I love to cook. Im great at pasta, fish and nice salads. — Jordi Molla
I think a good director casts a film so that the actors bring a lot to the table. — Debbie Allen
You are the director of your own life story. Don't cast idiots or people will walk out during your 2nd act. — Dane Cook
I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game. — Bob Balaban
I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent. — Randy Harrison
I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door. I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch. — Olivia Wilde
Casting directors now just see me as the hard-core sniper or prison guard. — Barry Pepper
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
We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators. — Stephen Fry
The flow of action continually produces consequences which are unintended by actors, and these unintended consequences also may form unacknowledged conditions of actions in a feedback fashion. Human history is created by intentional activities but is not an intended project; it persistently eludes efforts to bring it under conscious direction. — Anthony Giddens
The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart. — Bette Davis
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
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
I always think that trying to push yourself as an actor in a direction that you've never been before, developing characters which are more difficult to get into the head of, or are more interesting and further away from yourself, is always a challenge. But, you want to take up that challenge and try your best. — Asa Butterfield
I know what its like to direct. You become a more considerate actor. After you have directed, you understand what is going on. You can't help but think of the material as a director. You do come up with suggestions. You come up with shortcuts that you weren't aware of before. You try to be helpful to the director if he has a lot on his hands. — Dolph Lundgren
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
I don't really like directing. I've had a good relationship with actors, but I can do what I do and back off. I don't want that much romancing. I don't want them to call me up at two in the morning saying, 'I don't know who I am. — Gordon Willis
Actors are pulled in so many different directions that unless you both are absolutely into it through thick and thin and completely sure about each other, it's just hard. I've decided I'll never date an actor again. — Jessica Alba
You've got to remember that improvisers are writers and actors and directors all simultaneously. That's what's happening in real time because you're writing on your feet, and you are acting out the words and you are directing what the staging is. You're deciding what staging is. — Mike Birbiglia
It was difficult every ten days having a new director. I'm a real collaborator and, as an actor, I want to be directed. It's hard for me to shift gears. — Jeanne Tripplehorn
I have a great respect for actors like Clint Eastwood, who's a wonderful director. I think two pictures that I directed were not successful, so I decided not to make any more. — Kirk Douglas
If you make the right choice in casting, your work is nearly done already. You don't have to spend a lot of time directing the actors, because they're so well suited to the parts. — Jean-Pierre Jeunet
There is no grand strategy. My sensibilities push me in a certain direction. Other actors have different sensibilities. That's all. I think it really is that simple. There's no grand strategy. There are so many variables that I have no control over. I sign on to movies I want to watch, as a fan. — Shia LaBeouf
I think directing yourself is a monumental task. Just to self edit as an actor, you work for some directors who don't give you a lot of feedback so you have to do that. That's a difficult thing to do as an actor. — Ashton Kutcher
But I did on projects that I produced, that I directed, that I acted in because it was important. I want to be a filmmaker. I don't want to be an actor who directs, I want to be a director. I want to be a filmmaker. So that's a big difference. — Eriq La Salle
I don't come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background. — Abdellatif Kechiche
If it's well written and well directed and you've got good actors to work with, acting is easy. But making sure all the ducks are in a row is the hard part. It's very rare — John Lithgow
I see myself doing Harry Potter films as long as I'm enjoying it and as long as they are going to challenge me as an actor. I want to be an actor - it's my aspiration - so I want to do other films. I want to write something and I want to direct something! — Daniel Radcliffe
I'd like to see myself married with a child and hopefully still involved in the entertainment business as an actor who is also able to write a bit and direct some projects. — Fred Savage
I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project. — Atom Egoyan
Actors are embracing a new aesthetic, which is leaning more toward truthful and simple and direct, as opposed to what we would normally call sitcom acting. — William H. Macy
There's music in my films but you seldom hear it. Very early I got the idea that the important things in films were people - the actors. They are the intermediary between the director and the audience. They make direct contact. People to people communication. — Frank Capra
Acting is a creative process, and directing and music. I think creative people - and I take myself as a creative person and it doesn't mean you have to be an actor, a musician, or a painter - but I think if you are in a creative profession or a creative business you do have a heightened awareness. — Anthony Hopkins
I hated the idea that I would be like my father. Which is one of the reasons I decided I didn't want to be a writer and wanted to be an actor instead. I wanted to go in a total different direction. But, of course, I ended up being a writer anyway. — Loudon Wainwright III
I am co-writing a screenplay now and I'm working on the rights to another story I want to do. So I plan to produce and direct. So, for me, I don't really feel that I am vulnerable to that sad baggage that comes with the business of filmmaking. — Kerry Washington
I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive. — Matt Damon
I was a film-directing major at NYU. I'm still not sure why I became a directing major, when I was really an actor and a comedian, but there was something that drew me to doing that. — Billy Crystal
All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it. — Mike Nichols
The great, rewarding thing about directing is that you're overseeing the whole thing. When you're an actor, you're just one department. — Matt Dillon
James Ivory comes close to the actors for the first rehearsal. He more or less lets you direct yourself and then will only correct you if he finds it incorrect. — Leslie Caron
I'm always amazed at the way some actors' behaviour is truly disgusting. That's one thing that will never happen on one of my sets if I ever direct. — Daniel Radcliffe
We did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. — James Comey
In this type of cinema, whether working with actors or non-actors, as much as you do direct them, if you allow yourself to be directed by them, then the end result will be much more pleasing. The real and individual strengths of the actors is allowed to be expressed and is something that does affect the audience very deeply. — Abbas Kiarostami
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