Quotes & Sayings About Acting On Emotions

The difficulty is to keep a tight reign on our emotions. They may remain, but it is not they who are to rule the action. They have no authority. A life lived in God is not lived on the plane of the feelings, but of the will. In Scripture the heart is the will - the man himself, the spring of all action, the ruling power bestowed on him by his Creator, capable of choosing and acting. — Elisabeth Elliot

That's the hardest part of acting: when it is ultra-personal, when it is deeply personal, and there's no lying involved. You can't fake it, you can't get by it. This is dealing with the most primal instincts and emotions that a mother can have. — Patricia Clarkson

Acting probably saved my life. It gave me a home and a safe place to let out all of my emotions and have it be okay. — Vanessa Marcil

Ciss says, 'People have less emotions than actors think they have. For much of the time we hide our emotions, we haven't time for emotions. Our brains work so much faster than our emotions. — Antony Sher

I think acting is really fully adapting to your surroundings, to your emotions, to the people that you're working with, to being tired, to wanting to go home, to being lonely, to being happy. I mean, it's adapting. For me, it is anyway. And trusting. Adapting and trusting. That's my format right there. — Charlize Theron

Our vibration depends upon what we are thinking, feeling and acting. You have two choices, one is to flow with the chaotic frequencies of the world and feel hopeless, or decide what and how you want to feel. — Hina Hashmi

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon. — Stephen R. Covey

It definitely helps to have the acting experience going into singing, because when you're singing, you have to portray the emotion you were feeling when you wrote the song. They're the same thing, in a way; it's expressing your emotions through words. — Ryan Newman

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions. — Abhishek Bachchan

I've always believed in trying to be as open as possible. I think it almost comes with the job - if you can bare your emotions, it makes for better acting. — Emilia Fox

I went through this realization that acting, at its heart, is the ability to manipulate your own emotions. — Scarlett Johansson

The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists. — Leslie Howard

I have quite a normal family and I'm bored with how normal my family is. I want to mess stuff up a bit. I chose the messed up characters because I find that that's acting. I want to explore emotions that you otherwise wouldn't be able to explore. — Chloe Grace Moretz

I think there are probably a lot of actors like me who I think probably struggle to feel comfortable in their own lives, and acting in some ways provides a safe context for them to live out emotions that they possibly repress or live out experiences that they are not afforded by virtue of circumstance. — Jesse Eisenberg

I do think that's one of the reasons that acting appealed to me so much: the idea of letting go of control in a controlled environment. Being able to go through the range of intense emotions and jump off the cliff, metaphorically, but in a creative way, and in a way where the structure was really solid. — Carla Gugino

A compassionate heart still feels anger, greed, jealousy, and other such emotions. But it accepts them for what they are with equanimity, and cultivates the strength of mind to let them arise and pass without identifying with or acting upon them. — Stephen Batchelor

The thing I adore about acting is that it's not me: you get to experience all these emotions, but essentially it's not you. — Jessica Brown Findlay

I think when I started acting it was the first time I got the freedom of expression. I was able to express certain emotions and feelings that I could put into other characters, so it was a good way for me to run away from ho I personally was. I could be a ninja, I could be a pirate or I could be in a play y'know. — Adam Beach

To be a great actor, you really don't need to go to acting school or learn dance classes or work on your body. You have to be intelligent. You have to draw on a lot of emotions that you go through in life that you can tap into once you work on a set. — Ranbir Kapoor

The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded. — Jesse Eisenberg

In terms of showing their emotions and acting on them, my women characters are a lot more advanced than the men. — Kent Haruf

I want to break into the acting industry. It's something I have a great deal of respect for; it's a passion of mine. It's so amazing, the differences between acting and being an athlete, but the one commonality is they both evoke emotion in the viewer. And those emotions are real. So I think that's pretty cool. — Apolo Ohno

I'm not interested in being famous or anything, but I'm definitely interested in expressing emotions, and acting and filmmaking can be great outlets for that. Filmmaking is an incredible art. — Ellar Coltrane

Emotions aren't doable. Actions are doable, and if you do them correctly, they prompt the feelings. — Stella Adler

Stand-up comedy is a lot about amplifying emotions and situations; movie acting has a lot to do with mellowing things down and making them subtle. The transition was almost terrifying because of the magnitude of change. — Vir Das

Especially since I stared studying acting, I feel like I'm always super-aware of my emotions and my feelings and what's going on with me at every moment. — Mariah Carey

When you're acting and you need to cry, you want to put yourself in a position where you're trying not to cry, because that is generally what people try and do. They try to hold on to their emotions, they don't want to lose them. — Jared Harris

I do tend to gravitate to the more dramatic side of things. I love feeling intense emotions when I'm acting. I just love characters and stories with conflict. — Aaron Paul

Sometimes I get a little confused because with dancing I can express my emotions with my body. With acting you have to do it with your face and your expressions, and then with animated shows you have to use your voice and use your inflections. So it's definitely a challenge to transfer from each genre of entertainment. — Alyson Stoner

There are times in relationships, when we blow it. In spite of our best intentions, we wrong others. Our jealousy makes us feel inferior. Our own wounds cause us to act irrationally. Our insecurities lead us to say hurtful things.
And so, we find ourselves acting out. In short, we cloud our lives with muddy water. We trash around the pond of our emotions until things are just too messed up to figure out how to fix them.
It is in the times of muddy water that we learn how to wait it out. We have to wait until the mud settles. We must wait until we can clearly see where the water of our lives ends and the mud of misplaced emotions begin.
Have the patience to wait until the mud settles. Be still until the water is clear. In clear water, words come. Right actions reveal them selves and healing appears.
From the Devotional A Word in Season — Stella Payton

I'm interested in the acting and staging of specific emotions, and so I work with actors. It's a small proportion of what I do, but it's always what people seem to focus on. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

Because whipping an atlas at Jackson's head while he was flirt-touching that Frankie girl in geography would have been very satisfying. And beating him with the Eiffel Tower snowglobe while he kissed Cleo in French would have been tres cathartic. But she hadn't. Instead she'd been egg-like: a hard shell on the outside, and a runny mess on the inside. — Lisi Harrison

I get to meet fantastic people, and I get to go through so many emotions. For me, I have a craving for that. When I'm acting, I feel great. It's not to be famous. — Christopher Parker

According to Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild, if you're feeling an intense emotion like anxiety or anger, there are two ways to manage it: surface acting or deep acting. Surface acting involves putting on a mask--modifying your speech, gestures, and expressions to present yourself as unfazed...In deep acting, known as method acting in the theater world, you actually become the character you wish to portray. Deep acting involves changing your inner feelings, not just your outer expressions of them...Deep acting turns out to be a more sustainable strategy for managing emotions than surface acting. Research shows that surface acting burns us out: Faking emotions that we don't really feel is both stressful and exhausting. If we want to express a set of emotions, we need to actually experience them. — Adam Grant

Perhaps, however, music retains a survival role in adults in that it allows the 'practice' of feeling emotions without having to risk the consequences of acting on these emotions. — Isabelle Peretz

I remember playing with some friends and being aware that I was acting as I was playing with them - I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else. My parents also took me to ballet school, and there I think I was able to start communicating those feelings or emotions - I danced for so many years. — Penelope Cruz

It was only after university that I said to myself that I had to take the risk and have a serious go at acting. It's such a bizarre profession, because you have to be totally tough to deal with all those times when you're being turned down, and then really soft in order to access your character's emotions. — Felicity Jones

Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions. — Sanford Meisner

Playing roles and acting are forms of lying. If a person acts like they really feel and it rocks the boat, they are ostracized. We promote pretense and lying as a cultural way of life. Living this way causes an inner split. It teaches us to hide and cover up our toxic shame. This sends us deeper into isolation and loneliness. — John Bradshaw

The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries..acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state.
No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural ... — Joseph Conrad

I don't remember a time when I wasn't acting. I have taken time off to figure out if it's what I really want to do, and it is. The only other job I'd want is to be a psychologist, as I spend most of my time analyzing people and emotions. — Evan Rachel Wood

Acting for me was an escape and it wasn't until Smoke Signals that made me realize that acting is a personal development and challenge to grow. Smoke Signals really mirrored the way I grew up and how I felt, and that movie was the first time I'd dealt with my parents' death and how I felt that loss and sadness and anger. After that movie I said, "Y'know what, I have to realistically wear my emotions now when I do a job. That's gotta be as real as it gets. It's not just dialogue anymore." — Adam Beach

Invitations not obligations: Our expectations of other people can be a big drain on our emotions. When we ask someone to do something, or, worse, have a belief that someone should do something and insist that he or she comply, it places a great stress on us. And the other person, noting our anxiety and insistence that they conform to our expectations, may actually become less inclined to respond as we like.
Instead, consider everything you want someone else to do to be an invitation that the other person may or may not choose to accept. Of course, if you are an employer or a parent who is trying to ensure a child's safety, you must have parameters and ground rules. Everyone else, however, should be released from the obligation of doing, being, living, and acting as you feel they should. — Will Bowen

DENIAL OF EMOTIONS
Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain. — John Bradshaw

For so many years she'd lived a life absent of emotion or companionship or love. She'd functioned as an automaton, acting out her part without feeling, lacking even the introspection to ask why she'd cast herself in this role, or where it all might end. It hadn't even been a lonely existence because she felt no loneliness; she felt nothing. Whereas now, she felt everything. Emotions festered in her; fear pecked like a carrion bird, guilt ripped and chewed. And, at her core, that crushing sense of hopelessness, threatening to consume everything that she'd started to become. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. — Amanda Seyfried

Acting has made me embrace my childhood. It's become some weird form of therapy. It's like I have a place where I can release all of these emotions. When I was playing Ira Hayes, I didn't have to think about the death of my parents directly. It's just there. I can blend it into Ira's character. I can use Ira's emotions as an outlet. — Adam Beach

When you're actually feeling a character and you're going through the real emotions, and you're not fake acting, that energy stays with you and sometimes you can't get it off for days. It just resonates in your body, unless you have some sort of release, whatever it is. — Tinsel Korey

It's been great, I have to dig deep for really raw emotions and at the same time I have to use my intellect to say the ridiculous medical jargon while acting and treating a patient and then I have to try to have a personality and emotions as well. So it is definitely hard work. — John Leguizamo

A lot of the time I hate acting. It has a lot to do with the way I was brought up in a world where showing your emotions is frowned upon. It's just not manly. I don't do anything in life because I love doing it. It's because I want to be good at it. — Matthew Fox

For me, acting was always a way to explore emotions - to dip into the well and really try to reach rock bottom down there. That was the most exciting part of it. I hadn't found anything that really allowed me to do that until I came upon acting. — Jessica Lange

I'm definitely inspired by music; I feel like I can express a part of myself, a part of my heart and my soul, that I can't express just acting by writing music or singing music. It takes the emotions to another level. I feel really connected to something else, you know. — Laura Bell Bundy

Most films and directors lose their nerve and want to indicate [emotions] a bit more, to show that their story is clear. I'm not saying that's a good thing; as an actor its anathema to good acting, but to have someone with the confidence to say that should I be utterly natural and minimalist is great. — Matt Damon

Men need to be strong, but not bullies. They need to know how to not get emotionally lost in situations, but not be cold and emotionless. They need to know the full variety of emotions as well as thinking and acting. Not just the most limited ways of doing things. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I think they're having trouble adjusting to the emotions they have outside of their dreams. At any rate, they keep acting like demented teenagers from a porno version of a John Hughes film. (Asmodeus) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Numerous academic studies have shown that amateur investors make poor traders - buying stocks for the wrong reasons, holding losers for too long, and acting on whims and emotions. — Gary Weiss

I have always been down to test what I can do and push the limits of my acting. I have always wanted to try new genres and stuff - but I love comedy. I grew up on comedy, and I love having a good time and making people laugh. But it is also really nice to switch it around and make people think and feel some darker emotions. — Devon Bostick

There were time when I was into method acting that I did have moments of residual character emotions, because the method bases your emotional responses as a character on emotional experiences from your real life. — Corin Nemec

Acting is bad acting if the actor himself gets emotional in the act of making the audience cry. The object is to make the audience cry, but not cry yourself. The emotion has to be inside the actor, not outside. If you stand there weeping and wailing, all your emotions will go down your shirt and nothing will go out to your audience. Audience control is really about the actor — Rex Harrison

You have to learn to draw the same emotion you had when you wrote a song every time you perform it. Acting is the same way: You have to find those emotions and bring them to the surface, and then put them back when you're done. — Crystal Bowersox

The realization that my grandmother, mother and I are one in the same awakens something mysterious inside of me. The person I am, someone I believe has more opportunities than my mom and grandmother in matters of work, relationships and love is true, yet I am still acting out old belief patterns. I am no better or smarter than either one of them. Our basic needs and emotions in life are the similar. Our experiences differ, but we are one and the same. This conscious awakening is surreal. — Sadiqua Hamdan

When you use single character viewpoint, you tell the main character's story - and only his or her story. Every single thing in the plot - whether it's an event, problem, emotion, or consequence - should be revealed through that main character's eyes. Your main character needs to be on center stage throughout the entire story, acting and reacting to what is happening in the plot. To do that effectively, reveal only your main character's emotions and thoughts. Tell your reader only what your main character is feeling, not the feelings of other characters. — Tracey E. Dils

There is an art to acting, and there are techniques that are acquired. You can be as emotional as you'd like, as a person, but figuring out ways that you can bring specific emotions at specific times and have them be true, and relating to someone as someone that they're not, is a lot. — Zoe Bell

All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part. The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is - marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state. No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity. — Joseph Conrad

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself. — Jeanne Moreau

He came face-to-face with the rude paradox fame had dealt him: The secret of his extraordinary art had been his ability to observe human interaction anonymously, thereby gaining insight into the emotions on display in ordinary life
it was his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall that made him famous, and fame had destroyed his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall. — C.R. Strahan

So I will say this, "if any man marries just because of the emotions he feels towards a woman without first seeking the face of God to confirm if she is the suitable support needed for his life's assignment, such a man is acting in error. — Aderinsola Obasa

The acting served as an outlet for my emotions for some time because I was doing it under the guise of someone else. And that can only be therapeutic up to a point until you truly deal with it and can express it to someone directly. Acting was a helpful outlet for me as a child. In some ways, I can say it saved my life. — Lindsay Wagner