Stage Actors Quotes

• 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

  Birthday, Time, Player

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 139

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• All the world's a stage, and all the men and women mearly players.

  William Shakespeare

  Friendship, Birthday, Men

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 139

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• One man in his time plays many parts.

  William Shakespeare

  Birthday, Character, Men

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 139

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• A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Men, People, Acting

  Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (1964). “Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic”

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• 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

  Artist, Feelings, Acting

  Constantin Stanislavski (2013). “Building a Character”, p.216, A&C Black

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• Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

  Bette Davis

  Acting, Wonder, Creation

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

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• 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

  Funny, Mean, Men

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• Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

  Alan Rickman

  Book, Differences, Making A Difference

  "Alan Rickman on 'Nobel Son'". Interview with Aaron Hillis, www.ifc.com. December 04, 2008.

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• Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you-trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief 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

  Passion, Player, Air

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

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• If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft.

  Philip Seymour Hoffman

  Practice, Acting, Crafts

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• I'm a stage actor, and we never get to see our performances.

  Clarke Peters

  Actors, Stage, Performances

  "Is this it?". Interview with Adrian Lobb, www.theguardian.com. May 1, 2009.

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• I'm just a stage actor from Chicago.

  Jeremy Piven

  Chicago, Actors, Stage

  "Actor Jeremy Piven". "The Tavis Smiley show", www.pbs.org. April 2, 2013.

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• Yet the reality is that I'm a stage actor from the Midwest - probably the opposite of a shark agent.

  Jeremy Piven

  Reality, Sharks, Opposites

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• The only thing I wanted to do when I was a young naive kid was to become a New York stage actor.

  Oliver Platt

  New York, Kids, Young

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

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• I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.

  Danny Strong

  Years, Play, Issues

  "Screenwriter Danny Strong Talks HBO’s GAME CHANGE, Adapting Dan Brown’s THE LOST SYMBOL, and Lee Daniels’ THE BUTLER". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. March 6, 2012.

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• It used to be that you kind of got pigeonholed into one thing - you're either a stage actor or a TV actor or a movie actor. Today, there's a lot of crossover with film actors doing television, which never happened before, so those lines are a little bit more blurred than they used to be.

  Aaron Tveit

  Television, Lines, Littles

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• Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. Unfortunately, there's a style of acting going round, especially with the younger actors, where they talk without even moving their lip. Maybe it's because my hearing probably isn't what it was 40 years ago but I'm sitting there going "What did they say"?

  Clint Eastwood

  Moving, Thinking, Years

  Interview with Michael Parkinson, www.theguardian.com. October 6, 2003.

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• Stage actors look down on movie actors, movie actors look down on TV actors, and TV actors look down on... mass murderers.

  George Clooney

  Looks, Tvs, Mass

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• I was a stage actor for 20 years or so; I was leading men in classical things. 'Shakespeare,' you know. And now, I never play leading men. I'm that kamikaze comic that comes from the left, turns the table over, and leaves, or the hyper-intelligent yuppie scumbag if it's a drama.

  John Michael Higgins

  Drama, Men, Intelligent

  Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. June 23, 2011.

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• I studied movies for many years, but I am professionally an actor because I, my background is actually a stage actor and acting.

  Tommy Wiseau

  Years, Acting, Backgrounds

  "Conversations with a Cult (Film) Director Tommy Wiseau". Interview with Eric Ravenscraft, gawker.com. August 19, 2010.

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• Having been trained as a stage actor, and then you go out there and you're on 40,000 acres and you have a horse under you and you're shooting a real gun, you almost don't have to act. It's just really amazing.

  Anson Mount

  Horse, Real, Gun

  Source: collider.com

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• For the record, if you're not a stage actor, climbing onto Broadway and tackling something like David Mamet is not an easy thing to do.

  Jeremy Piven

  Climbing, Records, Broadway

  Source: collider.com

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• I knew I was a good stage actor but I had no idea about movies. And I wasn't a Paul Newman type of guy. That's why I thought the stage is just right for me.

  Ed O'Neill

  Ghouls, Ideas, Guy

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• There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that was as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it's audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands.

  Cecelia Ahern

  Ocean, Islands, Sea

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• A stage actor has to be 10% aware of the audience as he's performing.

  William Shatner

  Performing, Audience, Actors

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