Acting School Quotes & Sayings

For the fist time since she'd met him five years ago, Zander Duffield looked like a child acting the role of a Titan in a school play
instead of the Titan he actually was. — Suzanne Stroh

I decided to go to school for advertising and graphic design. That was what I was gonna do but acting is that thing, it's like a splinter in your mind and you can't get rid of it. So I decided to move to L.A. a few years ago and it just snowballed into this thing called 'The Hunger Games.' — Dayo Okeniyi

I have been doing acting my whole life. I did plays in high school. I take it pretty seriously. I used to do a lot of Shakespeare and Shakespearean festivals and monologues. — Vinny Guadagnino

I had spent my childhood making up adventures in my head. Then I realized when I went to acting school that there were adventures written down, and you could learn lines, and you could do the adventures for real, not just in your head. — Nancy Marchand

I was on the improv team in high school, and after I graduated, I joined an improv company that had been established 10 years prior to me getting there. They did longform improv, and I fell in love with it. It's acting, character creation, collaborative, artistic expression and comedy - and it's scary. It was a big rush. — Tatiana Maslany

I'll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, "It starts with the shoes." When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I'm going to put on a dress for a role - I don't care if it's the hardest dress to put on - I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character. — Jennifer Aniston

My parents made me finish high school before I started acting, and I did, like, two weeks of fine arts college before I was like, 'This sucks. I'm going!' I got a few small jobs, and then I booked a big-for-Canada feature. — Jessica Pare

I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route. — Benedict Cumberbatch

It was always my intention to direct. I went to film school. And then I wanted to know how to work with actors, so I went to acting school. And then by the end of that, I caught the bug. — Benn Northover

I left the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin in 2004, and I did five years of theater after that. — Aidan Turner

I used to do school plays. I never really took any acting classes. I'm just a natural ham, I guess. — Queen Latifah

In my early childhood, I was a performer by nature. I used to do puppet shows as a kid and entertain kids in classes and the teachers would make it a point that I was the entertainer of the class, but only after high school and in college that I started doing theater and acting classes, because I thought it would be fun. — Michael Jai White

When I first started out in Houston, it was theater or bust. And I loved it. I still love it. And then I went to undergraduate and graduate school for acting. — Jim Parsons

My experiences and training back at drama school were very enlightening. I always believe in improving, be it kathak or my acting skills, and would want to experiment more when it comes to work. — Jiah Khan

I didn't know how capable I was until the people around me in acting school would say I was good. — Jason Mitchell

My tutors at drama school commended and criticised my use of comedy in my acting for a long time at drama school. They said I had a tendency to somehow perform the most tragic of scenes in a slightly flippant way. — John Bradley-West

This is what I decided:
Chloe is gone. She is never coming back. And the way I've been acting would hurt her. For at least an hour, I switch places with her in my mind-I am dead and Chloe is alive. How would she handle it? She would cry. She would be sad. She would miss me. But she wouldn't stop living. She would let people comfort her. She would sleep in her own room and smile at the memories as she drifted to sleep. And she would probably punch Galen Forza. Which brings me to what else I decided:
Galen Forza is a jerk. The details are hazy, but I'm pretty sure he had something to do with my accident on Monday. Also, he's a bit weird. Staring habit aside, he keeps popping up everywhere. Every time he does, I handle it with the grace of a rhino on stilts. So I'm switching my schedule as soon as I get to school. There is no good reason I should humiliate myself for seven periods a day. — Anna Banks

I needed an outlet in high school and came across painting. I've actually been painting longer than I've been acting. A movie is a collaborative effort, and with painting you just have yourself. — James Franco

So I was determined to use my last two years in college doing something I thought I would enjoy, which was acting. And it was probably because there was girls over in the drama school too, you know? — James Earl Jones

When I was at school, I was terrible at algebra and arithmetic, but I was always the best at English and literature. And acting, of course. — Joan Collins

I wanted to stay in New York to pursue acting, but my dad urged me to get a four-year degree. Reading about the film school at Florida State University, he suggested I go there. I received my bachelor's degree in 2003. — Lauren Miller

I joined an acting class in my junior year in high school. I'd always wanted to try it. — Rainn Wilson

I used to spend a lot of time at football training, but that time was later spent in amateur acting classes and my local youth theatre, in plays at school and after-school clubs. That filled the void. — Sam Claflin

The acting training in school was great, but it was mostly fun being young and in New York. Because my upbringing was so transient, New York ended up being my home. I've been living in New York longer than I have anywhere else in my life. — Pedro Pascal

I think all girls secretly want to be actresses because acting seems so glamorous. But as a child, I was always the villager who had one line in the school play. I was shy and I had a bit of a lisp. — Hannah Ware

I never went to acting school. I started in the circus, music hall, I was in a group, did kids' bits. I've always had this kind of insecurity being uneducated. — Rupert Graves

Acting is not a genteel profession. Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people's performances so troubled the onlookers that they feared their ghosts. An awesome compliment. Those players moved the audience not such that they were admitted to a school, or received a complimentary review, but such that the audience feared for their soul. Now that seems to me something to aim for. — David Mamet

I'd done some acting in high school. Then I went to Kenyon College and got thrown in jail and kicked off the football team. Since I was determined not to study very much, I majored in theater the last two years. Got my degree in speech; they didn't actually have a degree in theater. I graduated at two o'clock in the afternoon, and at three-thirty I was on the train for Williams Bay, Wisconsin, for summer stock, and then I did winter stock. — Paul Newman

Growing up in this post-apartheid era, the first generation of teens in South Africa living in this new democracy, I often found myself feeling different. I was often the only person of color in an otherwise all-white school. And within the Indian community, because of my training with an English acting teacher, my accent was very different. — Adhir Kalyan

In England, when we're at drama school, we spend a lot of time learning the craft from playwrights and stage actors, who are very well trained in the basics of acting because they need to get it right the first time - you can't have second or third takes when you're in front of a live audience, unlike in film. — Sam Claflin

My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part. — Ajay Naidu

I got real acting experience, which I'd never had partly because I still wasn't so sure that I wanted to be an actress. But maybe it was something I could do without a high school diploma or accredited skills of any kind whatsoever - a job that would pay me enough of a wage to let me go out into the world and start what I would laughingly come to call my own actual life. — Carrie Fisher

My mom used to model when she was younger, before she went to law school, and I think she thought it was pretty cool. I think my parents saw that acting ultimately made me happy, even though it was a rough ride for a little bit. — Alexandra Daddario

I'd had an early stint in acting school, and there was something satisfying about becoming a character, about being inside another mind that you had to create out of yourself. As I moved toward a life in writing, I found many of the things I'd learned in acting school still applied. — Michael Redhill

Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy. It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. — Bertrand Russell

I acted in high school and studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford for one summer. I minored in theater, and I was always acting growing up, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all. — T. J. Miller

If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you'll be a doctor at some place. There's a career trajectory. Acting, there's nothing. It's constantly trying to procure jobs - it's very disconcerting. — Jesse Eisenberg

I definitely felt by the time I got to grad school - which was a great experience - I was like, 'What's the difference between the teachers and the students? Why are the teachers teachers if they want to be acting?' It didn't make sense to me anymore. It's not like you learn how to set a broken bone and you get the stamp of approval. — Taylor Schilling

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man. — David Suchet

I never went to acting school, so improv was my training. Just being quick on your feet helps in everyday life. — Ben Schwartz

It was easy for me to leave acting for school, because I wasn't really in it as an adolescent for fulfilling reasons. — Anna Chlumsky

I went to film school at Columbia and did that for a couple years, and really thought I was going to be a filmmaker, and then I kind of drifted over to the acting side after that. — Scott Adsit

I thought that if acting didn't work out, I'd have done law school or medical school: probably law to be honest. — Jesse Williams

I wasn't really driven to be an actor or anything, but in college I decided to study acting, much to my parents' disappointment. I attended Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers where Bill Esper was, and that is where I really got hooked on the art of acting, and, almost, the chemistry of acting. — Roger Bart

I didn't always want to act. My passion was writing, and it still is one of my primary passions to this day, but it wasn't until high school when I started acting in plays that it became a thought of something I might want to do. And when I applied to colleges, at NYU, I was able to study both writing and acting. — Bryce Dallas Howard

For me, acting was a reward. I had to get good grades in order to act, in order to be on TV. I had to do well in school so I could work. To me, it was like an after-school activity, something to look forward to. — Kyla Pratt

I play guitar and sing when I'm not busy with school and acting. — Kaitlyn Dever

Growing up, I was always in my high school musicals and everything, but I kind of stopped doing all that when I finished school and acting became my main priority. — Mallory Jansen

I graduated from school for graphic design, and I started to get into acting class just to get over severe fright. I was an extremely shy person. I could barely say hello to anybody. — Trevor Donovan

I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college. — Jeffrey Eugenides

There have been many stories recently about the bullying epidemic that seems to be occurring in our public school system. We should not be terribly surprised by this because children emulate what they see adults doing. One does not have to look at television for very long or listen to the radio for an extended period before one sees supposedly rational and mature adults vehemently attacking one another, calling each other names and acting like third graders. — Ben Carson

I was one of the only ones there interested in acting. You find when you're doing school plays that a lot of people there were on punishment, or something. — Sam Riley

I had a pretty untraditional high school experience. I've been acting since I was very young. — Dan Byrd

I used to do a little acting in school. It was my first love, and I really thought I would be doing it as a career. I really wanted to complete that part of my ambition. — Jimmy Cliff

I've been very blessed, I think, or what do you call it ... mmm ... lucky to get at this stage what I have. It's not like I've come from acting school and done work at an academy or something. I feel I've been given a very huge chance and opportunity. — Katrina Kaif

Acting has been my passion from the minute I started. I was pretty young when I wanted to be a doctor, but when I started doing theater work as a freshman in high school, the first time I hit the stage I was like, If I can do this every day, life won't get any better! — Sophia Bush

I never went to school for anything that I have done. I've never taken a class in singing, I never went to school for singing, acting, nothing. All I know is that it's a gift. — Patrice Lovely

I learned a lot of good things in my school. I've audited a lot of other schools, and I guess after a while I got a little tired of the acting school atmosphere. — James Franco

I went to college at University of South Carolina and dropped out of chemistry, and to fill a class, the only spot they had left was a theater class. It was so annoying, but I took it and then I thought it was the greatest thing; the most socially creative. I dropped out of school immediately and moved to New York to start acting. I was 19. — Jonny Weston

I attend film school, my background is acting and directing. But the acting does best, I like to work on the stage. — Tommy Wiseau

I had interest in acting. I started as a drama major in college. I got to school and said, "What am I going to do with this?" But I didn't know anybody in the business, and it seemed like - I don't know. I had a teacher who said "Less than 1 percent of you will ever make a living being an actor." That was how we opened the semester. — Greg Kinnear

When I decided that I might want to do acting for a living - I don't know where it really came from, since there was no school play or any of that - my mom gave me her blessing. I had to get a scholarship - that was the only way I could have gone to drama school. — Gary Oldman

When I was in junior high, a foreign-history teacher started a theater class. So I got my feet wet there and through high school, so I was very fascinated with acting as a means of expression. — Dwight Yoakam

I was always acting. I was doing after-school plays and stuff like that. — Justin Theroux

By the time I entered high school, I had forsaken academics altogether in favor of my burgeoning acting career. — Michael J. Fox

[In high school] my interests outside my academic work were debating, tennis, and to a lesser extent, acting. I became intensely interested in astronomy and devoured the popular works of astronomers such as Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans, from which I learnt that a knowledge of mathematics and physics was essential to the pursuit of astronomy. This increased my fondness for those subjects. — Allan McLeod Cormack

I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself. — Lupita Nyong'o

It was like baptism by fire. There was no school for studying acting. You just have to take it upon yourself to learn from your peers. It's about opening your eyes, listening, and watching. — Michelle Yeoh

I remember having friends in high school that did the theater department stuff, and I always wanted to try it but never had the guts to. I was the class clown but could never really build up the courage to try it. I took one acting class and really enjoyed it. — Robert Buckley

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience. — Lupita Nyong'o

As a kid, I was fortunate that we grew up near a children's theater, with all different classes and things; so as a kid I took classes there and as I got into high school I did all the community theater stuff. Then I came to college in New York and studied acting there. But most of the training I got was from working. Working with really great people. — Andrew Rannells

I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you're an actor, you know, don't really need to learn how to do it. — Patrick Macnee

The transition from sports into acting was something I got blindsided by. I had a full scholarship to law school. I had a different life planned. I started a business, and I was all ready to go. I suddenly got in a local movie, just to say to my kids one day, "Yeah, your old man was in a movie," and I caught the bug. — Marc Blucas

I was lucky, I got offered places and have had some good opportunities. But it is hard work. I suppose I am a bit of a geek when it comes to acting and doing my work. But I was never really nerdy at school, more slightly naughty, so this is my time to be nerdy. — Christine Bottomley

I was an amazing bartender and a great waiter. I think, in a way, that was my acting school. — Nick Frost

An unforgettable experience happened on December 15, 1996 when I won the Supermodel contest while still in school. I was just seventeen years old then. Winning that competition was the turning point of my life. That's how I got into modeling and later started acting. — Bipasha Basu

When I went to Los Angeles right after high school, I got some acting jobs, and I never, ever wanted to be an actress! Public speaking and acting make me want to vomit. But I have never been nervous singing. When it comes to public speaking, I stumble on my words, sweat, and pull at my clothes. — Kelly Clarkson

I'm told I was acting in school plays when I was a tiny little boy at the age of three, so they must have seen something then. And even when I was practicing piano eight hours a day, I was still doing school plays. — Christian McKay

She doesn't have any terrific talent for acting, but that's how it appears to go. People don't do what they have a talent for but what the preoccupation leads to. If they're good at auto-repairing they have to sing Don Giovanni; if they can sing they have to be architects; and if they have a gift for architecture they wish to become school superintendents or abstract painters or anything else. Anything! It's a spite. It's having to prove full and ultimate self-sufficiency or some such monster dream that you don't need anyone else to do these things for you. — Saul Bellow

But then I got a job selling coffee at the York Theatre, and when I met theatre people, something clicked. I felt comfortable with them; I felt like myself. I decided to go to drama school based just on that feeling. I had never done any acting. — Janet McTeer

Acting was something I did growing up. I never it took it too seriously; it was just one of those things I got into high school and was like, 'Nah, I don't want to continue acting.' Cause I got into it professionally by local theater, and from there, I just decided to do sports and be more a high school kid and have my fun. — Stephen Colletti

Acting and singing were just a hobby, but getting into drama school made me realise I could actually do it for a living. — Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

My background is a small town with no movie theater. So ... I always pictured myself onstage. I went to acting school and learned all the skills. I left early because I did my first movie and discovered that I really loved the minimalistic work with the camera. — Franka Potente

I have the support of my parents and my teachers. They made it very possible for me to go to a school that is open and supportive of me being gone at times and pursuing acting. But school always comes first for me. — Yara Shahidi

Clark Gable once said to me, "'Acting school?' [If you go,] I'll kill ya!" — Mickey Rooney

I was, throughout school, in the theater program. Through elementary school, junior high, high school, and then J.J. Abrams, my closest friend in the world, we were living together. He was writing, and I was trying writing; I wasn't getting paid for it like he was, but I always had the acting bug. — Greg Grunberg

I had been singing all my life, but I started acting in high school. — Kevin Richardson

Actors work with their look. I come from the Lon Chaney Sr. school of acting. I'll wear wigs, I'll wear nose pieces, I'll wear green contact lenses in my eyes. I'll do whatever I need to do to create a character. — Nicolas Cage

I think I got into acting because I kind of had not much else to do! I guess I was kind of looking for something challenging. I heard about the London Theater scene and it was very different from the upbringing that I had and it felt like a challenge. And the whole sort of London Theater schools, I was told that 6,000 apply and there are like 30 accepted to each one. I was like, "Yeah. Let's see if we can do that!" — Jeremy Irvine

I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.' — Ian McKellen

I acted all the way up until Princeton. It was just one of my favorite extracurricular activities. Then I got to Princeton and had a really conservative vibe. All my friends were planning on law school, med school, or Wall Street, and suddenly acting seem like a really risky proposition. — Wentworth Miller

I went to a public high school, and after graduation, college wasn't really much of an option for me. I didn't believe I had the money or the grades at the time, so I continued to work and save money to support my acting career. — Christie Laing

I never had a real job. I started acting in high school, and then I started working. So, I never got to have that experience. — Zoe Kravitz

Acting was my after-school activity. I never planned on growing up and becoming an actor. — Sara Paxton

Dr. Birdsell, my dramatic coach in school, always said that I was the most melancholy Dane that he had ever directed. — Donald Freed

I went to quite an academic school, and all my friends were going to university, but even before my acting jobs, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to spend another three years being institutionalised, and I feel that getting out of that system benefited me in quite a few ways. — Talulah Riley

I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition. — Michelle Rodriguez

I didn't go to acting school, so it was great to be able to rehearse for a month or two, to workshop, and be with a director who even gave me acting exercises. — Charlotte Gainsbourg

Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

Looking, acting, and ultimately being Prep is not restricted to an elite minority lucky enough to attend prestigious private schools, just because an ancestor or two happened to arrive here on the Mayflower. You don't even have to be a registered Republican. — Lisa Birnbach