Actors Quotes - Page 5

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

  Dorothy Parker

  Running, Acting, Emotion

  Dorothy Parker (2004). “Dorothy Parker in Her Own Words”, Taylor Trade Publishing

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• Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before.

  Michael Shurtleff

  Acting, Up To You, Scene

  Michael Shurtleff (2009). “Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part”, p.48, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• 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

  Imagination, Acting, Tiny

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• Actor training should be broadly humanistic, involving the study not just of dramatic literature and theatre history, but of languages, literature, and history generally, and should be centered on acting in plays rather than just exercises, improvisations, monologues, or even scenes.

  Richard Hornby

  Exercise, Play, Training

  Richard Hornby (1992). “The End of Acting: A Radical View”, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books

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• Theatre, in which actors take on changing roles, has among its many functions the examination of identity. For the individual, theatre is a kind of identity laboratory in which social roles can be examined vicariously.

  Richard Hornby

  Theatre, Acting, Identity

  Richard Hornby (1986). “Drama, Metadrama and Perception”, p.71, Associated University Presse

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• 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

  Character, Play, Tree

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• An actor must make his needs (goals, wants, objectives) so strong that he is willing to interfere with the other actor in order to get what he needs. Interfering means getting in their way so that what you want is stronger than what they want.

  Michael Shurtleff

  Strong, Mean, Order

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• The [Great] Actor is able to approach in himself a cosmic dread as large as life. He is able to go from his dread to a joy so sweet that it is without limit. Only then will the actor have direct access to the life that moves in him, which is as free as his breathing. And like his breathing, he doesn't cause it to happen. He doesn't contain it, and it doesn't contain him.

  Joseph Chaikin

  Sweet, Moving, Breathing

  Joseph Chaikin (1993). “The Presence of the Actor”, p.10, Theatre Communications Group

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• There is a need for aloneness... for an actor.

  Marilyn Monroe

  Inspirational, Motivational, Acting

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• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?

  Harry Warner

  Inspirational, Witty, Humorous

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I went to school, majored in theatre, and said 'Mom, I have to choose my own destiny. I want to be an actor.' A couple of weeks after I graduated college I called my mother up and said 'Can I borrow $200?' and she said 'Why don't you act like you've got $200.'

  Arsenio Hall

  Funny, Mom, Mother

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• I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

  Elaine Dundy

  Funny, Humorous, Mean

  Elaine Dundy (2010). “The Dud Avocado”, p.130, New York Review of Books

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• I believe that God felt sorry for actors so he created Hollywood to give them a place in the sun and a swimming pool. The price they had to pay was to surrender their talent.

  Cedric Hardwicke

  Sorry, Believe, Swimming

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• It was only when I realized how actors have the power to move people that I decided to pursue acting as a career.

  Cate Blanchett

  Motivation, Moving, Careers

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• They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

  William Hazlitt

  Life, Glasses, Hands

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• Compare the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.

  John Berger

  Art, Nature, Drama

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.736, Vintage

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• I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.

  Robert De Niro

  Personality, Humans, Fascinating

  "Robert De Niro: At 70th birthday, he remains a man of many facets" by Todd Leopold, www.cnn.com. August 18, 2013.

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• People told me, when I was coming through the ranks, that a mark of a great actor is one who deals with the period of unemployment as well as they deal with the period of employment

  Claudia Black

  People, Unemployment, Periods

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• I remember hitting Sarah Michelle Gellar with a right hook during my first week on the job. It was awful. They usually pair actors with stunt doubles to avoid things like that.

  Eliza Dushku

  Jobs, Hook, Hitting

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• I think actors have a choice of drawing attention to themselves or living on the outskirts.

  Rachel Weisz

  Thinking, Drawing, Choices

  "Weisz Girl". www.mirror.co.uk. March 18, 2005.

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• I try not to have high expectations of people because it just sets you up for disappointment, but it's great to work with actors who are that talented and accomplished.

  Famke Janssen

  Disappointment, People, Expectations

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• Id just love to have an audience and its the most fun in the world to get a new script every week and have the audience come in, and work with those actors.

  Sara Gilbert

  Fun, World, Scripts

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• A lot of my friends are struggling musicians. Being a struggling actor, it's just frustrating because you're not allowed to do what you want to do.

  Gina Gershon

  Struggle, Musician, Want

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor

  Max von Sydow

  Mother, Thinking, Musical

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• I loved working on Of Mice and Men. It was a wonderful group of people. John Malkovich is to me one of the best actors around right now-and a lot of fun to work with.

  Sherilyn Fenn

  Fun, Men, People

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