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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• I love stage actors. There's something special about all people who have to do a performance eight shows a week, and musical people, especially, are so much fun.

  Kelly Bishop

  Fun, Eight, People

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• I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.

  Tony Shalhoub

  Character, Thinking, Theatre

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

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• I'll tell you what I think in general about people who want to make their Broadway debut that are not trained stage actors. Don't they know, Broadway ain't for sissies? It is a tough gig. You are responsible, physically, mentally, emotionally, for eight shows a week, at the top of your game. It's not easy.

  Patti LuPone

  Thinking, Games, Eight

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• I trained as a stage actor and was given a lot of technical tools to play with.

  Alan Tudyk

  Play, Tools, Given

  "Alan Tudyk Talks TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, SUBURGATORY, and Working With Joss Whedon". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. September 28, 2011.

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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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• I've had a chance to really stretch and do a lot of different genres. When I started acting, my whole focus and intention was to work as a stage actor in a company where you're asked to different roles - do a comedy, do a tragedy, etc. I haven't had any reservations about jumping from one type of genre to another.

  Kyle MacLachlan

  Jumping, Focus, Acting

  "Same Vest? Q&A: Kyle MacLachlan on 'Portlandia'". Interview with Paul Schrodt, www.esquire.com. January 4, 2013.

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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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• My attitude as an actor, because I'm a stage actor, is whatever the director tells you to do, you try it. You don't resist what a director is giving you.

  Anthony Heald

  Attitude, Giving, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

  Ian Mckellen

  Oscars, Walks, Know How

  2002 In the Observer,17 Feb.

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• I'm a geeky actor, in the way that I like the craft of acting. I trained as a stage actor and was given a lot of technical tools to play with. I like the craft of acting. It sounds geeky when I say it, but it's true.

  Alan Tudyk

  Play, Acting, Sound

  Source: collider.com

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• I love stage actors. The pool of world class actors that have done theater [is big], there's a higher opportunity of grabbing somebody from that pool.

  M. Night Shyamalan

  Opportunity, Class, Actors

  Source: www.moviesonline.ca

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• Unlike the people you see in Mathew Brady's photographs from the Civil War, the men and women of the Revolution seem more like characters in a costume pageant. And it's a pageant in which the performers are all handsome as stage actors, with uniforms and dress that are always costume perfect.

  David McCullough

  War, Character, Men

  Interview, www.bookreporter.com. June 2005.

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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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• This power that I'm supposed to have over women was never noticed when I was a stage actor on Broadway. I don't know when I got it. And by God, I can't explain it.

  Clark Gable

  Broadway, Knows, I Can

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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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