Quotes about acting-and-actors

All men practice the actor's art.

— Petron

Ah just act the way ah feel.

— Elvis Presley

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.

— Vincent Price

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

— Monty Python

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

— Anthony Quinn

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

— Nancy Reagan

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

— Robert Redford

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

— Thomas Reid

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

— Miranda Richardson

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

— Ginger Rogers

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]

— Tom Selleck

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.

— William Shakespeare

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.

— William Shakespeare

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.

— George Bernard Shaw

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

— Norma Shearer

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

— Donald Sinden

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.

— Donald Sinden

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.

— Mira Sorvino

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

— Kevin Spacey

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.

— Sylvester Stallone

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

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing -- all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art -- at the door.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

— Konstantin Stanislavisky

Imagination, industry, and intelligence -- the three I s -- are all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.

— Ellen Terry

I can't tell you how many shows I've done with full-blown migraine headaches.

— Jonathan Taylor Thomas

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

— Spencer Tracy

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

— Skeet Ulrich

If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.

— Bill Vaughan

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

— Orson Welles

I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.

— Forest Whitaker

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

— Oscar Wilde

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

— Oscar Wilde

The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to lifeless forms must be born in a man. No dramatic college can teach its pupils to think or to feel. It is Nature who makes our artists for us, though it may be Art who taught them their right mode of expression.

— Oscar Wilde

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.

— Thornton Wilder

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

— Elijah Wood

Actors are one family over the entire world.

— Alfre Woodard

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

— Billy Zane

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

— Oscar Wilde