Actors Quotes

• 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

  Inspirational, Motivational, Voice

  Howard Kissel, Stella Adler (2000). “Stella Adler - The Art of Acting: preface by Marlon Brando compiled & edited by Howard Kissel”, p.19, Hal Leonard Corporation

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• 

  To be an actor you have to be a child.

  Paul Newman

  Children, Acting

  "Paul Newman: A Life in Pictures". Book edited by Yann-Brice Dherbier and Pierre-Henri Verlhac, October 19, 2006.

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• The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Aquariums, Theatre, Acting

  41 Copy quote

• When [actors] are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.

  Cedric Hardwicke

  Talking, Acting, Fine

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

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• Conflict is what creates drama. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.

  Michael Shurtleff

  Drama, Interesting, Acting

  48 Copy quote

• I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

  Bette Davis

  Regret, Apology, Enemy

  Bette Davis (1962). “The lonely life: an autobiography”, Putnam's

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• Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

  George Burns

  Funny, Success, Fake People

  80 Copy quote

• Acting doesn't have anything to do with listening to the words. We never really listen, in general conversation, to what the other person is saying. We listen to what they mean. And what they mean is often quite apart from the words. When you see a scene between two actors that goes really well you can be sure they're not listening to each other - they're feeling what the other person is trying to get at. Know what I mean?

  Jack Lemmon

  Mean, Two, Feelings

  37 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Motivational, Order

  91 Copy quote

• It's only been a couple of times in my life that I've really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.

  Richard Donner

  Movie, Hurt, Couple

  9 Copy quote

• I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium.

  Christopher Eccleston

  Thinking, Theatre, Directors

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

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• I'm an actor, coming from New York theater.

  Skeet Ulrich

  New York, Theater

  6 Copy quote

• The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that's not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it's a power - not being yourself, and being in the role; it's just like another prop.

  Reese Witherspoon

  Being Yourself, Power, Joy

  6 Copy quote

• We're one of the forces that causes actors to fasten seat belts before they take off chasing the bad guy in the car... or removes some of the cigarette smoking on television.

  Gerald McRaney

  Marijuana, Car, Smoking

  7 Copy quote

• Being here allows me to make the case that not all aging, narcissistic movie actors whose children could be mistaken for their grandchildren necessarily act with the same motivation.

  Warren Beatty

  Motivational, Children, Narcissistic

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Encouragement, Character, Creating

  51 Copy quote

• You need three things in the theatre - the play, the actors and the audience, and each must give something.

  Kenneth Haigh

  Play, Giving, Theatre

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I've wanted to be an actor ever since I was a little boy.

  Henry Darrow

  Boys, Littles, Wanted

  6 Copy quote

• As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Men, Theatre

  'Richard II' (1595) act 5, sc. 2, l. 23

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• I was trained to be an actor, not a star.

  Gene Hackman

  Stars

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.

  Jim Carrey

  Funny, Talking, Aces

  "Major in Success". Book by Patrick Combs and Jack Canfield, 2003.

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• They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.

  William Hazlitt

  Dream, Hypocrite, Acting

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.218

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• 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

  Art, College, Men

  15 Copy quote

• Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

  Samuel Johnson

  Dog, Laughter, Player

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 404 (1775)

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• 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

  Passion, Soul, Tears

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 2, l. 1

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