Actor Acting Quotes & Sayings

It's funny because I've resisted acting as a career for most of my life. But both my parents told me if I ever want to direct, I should act first because no director should direct until they know what it's like to be in the actor's shoes. — Dylan Penn

In order to be able to work with somebody in acting, you've first got to think that person's a good actor before you can enjoy working with them. I guess that goes with the trust. — Tim DeKay

When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy. — David Suchet

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances. — Val Kilmer

I had to take false steps and go through hard times to come out to where I am now. I can't imagine living without acting. It's not easy, and I don't disrespect anyone who steps out of it after a certain point. Having a family and a house is cool. It's not a betrayal. But if you're going to be an actor, it has to be more than a passing interest. — Marylouise Burke

Having a live audience makes a world of difference to the acting. It keeps your timing sharp. When something doesn't work, the actor can sense the reaction from the audience and quickly move on. — Betty White

I love any kind of acting, so if I could focus on becoming the best actor I can strictly on my voice, I would love that. — Jennifer Stone

The truth in acting is that we are all hired help. We are a commodity. There is no difference between being an actor and pork bellies. — Lorraine Bracco

My introduction to acting was through theatre, so I actually saw a couple of Broadway shows that made me want to be an actor. — Skylar Astin

Arnaud Desplechin invented me as an actor. I never imagined I'd be acting in movies. — Mathieu Amalric

The only other thing I can really remember wanting to do besides acting was a gas station attendant. At the time, that seemed like a great job - wash the windows, pump the gas - it looks so cool coming home with black hands. There's a natural transition, from wanting to be a gas station attendant to being an actor, right? — Daniel Stern

What motivates every other decision artistically or technically is the acting. This is what motivates everything. Never can a camera move be incompatible with the emotion of the actor at that moment. The movement, the style, the atmosphere, everything is dictated by the actor. — Xavier Dolan

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them. — Peter Facinelli

I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory. — Eli Roth

Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, 'I will be a comedic actor.' I just thought, 'I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.' — Steve Carell

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you. — Michael Caine

In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control. — Susan Sarandon

When I was in my teens, I thought, 'Would I like to try and work hard at being an actor, or do I want to work hard at doing something musical?' Acting won out, but I do really enjoy those moments where I get to just belt something out. — Emilia Clarke

We all have loads of information. What an actor does is bring it to the surface. I jump without a net because that's how I am. The information comes out because I am brave enough to allow it. I'm not brave as a human being in everyday life. I'm brave when I'm acting. — Charlotte Rampling

I never looked at my future as comedy. Even at Second City, I always thought of it as acting. I knew I was going to be an actor financially, emotionally, egotistically. — Scott Adsit

I do very little on-camera acting, so within a phrase as a voice actor you have to know how to convey when someone is 95 years old or 19 years old ... When I was the lead singer of the California Raisins commercials there was a traditional actor there as well and he would do all these body movements without saying anything because he was "acting." And the only acting the microphone picked up on was silence. — Jim Cummings

A lot of parents tell their children that if they want to be an actor, that's fine, but they should do something else first, so they've got something to fall back on. It doesn't work like that, as far as I'm concerned. — Ewan McGregor

I am an actor, living generally on air, but I have always elastic hopes for the future; they may be stretched indefinitely, such hopes, without bursting — Vladimir Nabokov

What's important about an actor is his acting, not his life. — Vincent Price

The most important thing to having a long career, as an actor, is diversity and being able to play different types of characters in different types of movies. I want to keep acting, all my life. In order to do that, I think it is important to go and do the bigger tentpole box office movies, and then also do more character roles. — Josh Hutcherson

I feel as though, as an actor, you can only make brave choices when you're acting with people that you're so relaxed with that you can make a mistake. — Jaime Murray

I always wanted to direct. I always saw myself as a director. I know that I've definitely found what I should be doing with my life. In my life, as far as my career goes, I always felt, as an actor, that it was something that would just be a temporary thing that would get me to what I wanted to do next. That's what my acting did. — Steve Antin

As a person I'm perfectly vain, I'm just vainer as an actor about my ability. My acting vanity trumps my human vanity. — Rufus Sewell

The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good. — Billy Zane

I can't imagine writing if I didn't have a reader. Any more than an actor can imagine acting without an audience. — Joan Didion

I mean, sometimes ... a comedian becomes an actor, and they just don't deliver, because the bottom line of comedy is to be funny, and the bottom line of acting is to be truthful, and they get that mixed up sometimes, or don't even notice that that's the thing. — Eddie Izzard

I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie. — Matt Damon

Good preparation is key for me. Nowadays everyone is an actor slash writer, slash this, slash that, its cool; and you can only go so far on pure talent so you also need to know your craft well. I directed tons of shorts in college and acted in a slew of non paying acting work. You just have to be prepared. Period. — Jaime Zevallos

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

The great thing about NYU, and the reason I chose to go there, was the fact that they don't inhibit you as an actor and tell you, 'You only have to study acting. This is it for the rest of your life.' They're really great at balancing other things; you get to study two days a week anything you want unrelated to acting. — Roberto Aguire

Acting is a craft, and you need to study to be an actor. — Jason Ritter

I never even thought about being an actor. Somebody asked me if I'd like to learn the craft, and I said, 'Okay.' I was a gymnast in a show at that time, and somebody asked me afterwards one night. I performed as a gymnast for nine years, and then I did acting after that. — Mads Mikkelsen

Second only to a viable approach to acting, the most important thing an actor can find is a creative family. To have a solid core group of people that you take that journey with together is invaluable. — Jim Parrack

I think I know where my life went wrong. For all the world's a stage and I'm a lousy actor! — Greg Curtis

My theory is that everything an actor does, from the way he looks at his watch to the way he moves across the stage, is in the service of advancing a story, and in that sense, it's all writing. In that sense we, while acting, write. — Bernard Sahlins

What you're doing is acting with yourself. Well, I'm my favourite actor, so in a way it's quite straightforward for me. — Peter Capaldi

The hardest thing in acting is going from child actor to adult actor. It's taken me a long time. — Shia Labeouf

I was living in New York City and flat broke. My next door neighbor was an actor and he always seemed to be having more fun than I was. He convinced me to give acting a shot, but because of my shyness I was sure it would be a lost cause. — Joe Flanigan

I'm no actor. And I have sixty-four pictures to prove it. — Victor Mature

There is this immediate connection, this intimacy when you're acting because there's no room to be polite or shy. Also, as an actor I get to connect with women I've never met before. — Jessica Chastain

It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth — Elia Kazan

Cosmopolis is the movie of my life. I didn't consider myself an actor before, even if I had 10 years of acting behind me. I always felt like a fraud, and inappropriate. I doubt a lot. David Cronenberg gave me confidence in myself. He changed my way of acting and thinking in this industry. — Robert Pattinson

There are two things that really move me: music and acting. And I'm not talking about my music or watching myself as an actor, but listening to other people's music and watching other actors. There are so many different songs that have moved me. It all depends upon the mood that I'm in at that moment. — Janet Jackson

If you're not acting, you're not an actor. — Lance Henriksen

As a child, I was fascinated by the stories of Dickens acting out everything in front of the mirror as he wrote it down. Later, when you approach his work as an actor, you notice how sayable the dialogue is. — Harry Lloyd

Acting requires absorption, but not self-absorption and, in the actor's mind, the question must always be 'Why am I doing this?,' not 'How am I doing it? — Maureen Lipman

Acting for me is like a ping-pong game. That's the secret of acting. When you have a really good actor, I always want to be as good as he is or she is. — Sibel Kekilli

Dear V.,
I'm a terrible actor and this city is fucking freezing and I miss you.
- A. — Emily St. John Mandel

Leonardo is the most incredible actor, on the planet, with a couple of people alongside him. Getting to act with him is just [amazing]. I walked away from my audition for that and I couldn't believe that I'd been acting with him. I've worked with amazing people, but my friends freak out that I'm working with him. I freak out in a geeky acting way. They freak out in a starstruck way. He's Leonardo DiCaprio, and his fame is so big. That's a complete tangent about that. — Carey Mulligan

...as an actor there's nothing better than a great moody moment to play with nothing to say. It's so much easier to do because you can really get inside your head. — Ewan McGregor

I started acting when I was 13, but it really wasn't my plan. The actual decision to become an actor was when I was 17, after I didn't act for half a year because I came to an exchange student program in the US, and I realized how much I missed it. — Meital Dohan

Remember that you are but an actor, acting whatever part the Master has ordained. It may be short or it may be long. If he wishes you to represent a poor man, do so heartily; if a cripple, or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your part with honor. — Epictetus

It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized ... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to ... In L.A., I'm just another character actor. — Dan Castellaneta

When I first moved out to Los Angeles I was thinking, you know, I wanted to be an actor but I didn't really know what acting was about. I thought if I could be a model, or even do commercials and stuff like that for the rest of my life, I'd be happy. — Michael Biehn

I like to work as an actor. Not just for money, but because I really enjoy acting. — Peter Sarsgaard

I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to be a good guy, a bad guy, a victim, an abuser. There are all kinds of people in the world, and playing them is what acting is all about. — Kevin Bacon

Sigmund Freud said we act out our own dreams, but if you are only an actor you are not acting out your own dream. You are simply participating in someone else's dream. — John Malkovich

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

I just love the whole art form of acting, of being in front of a camera and playing different things. Not that I would ever say I'm the greatest actor in the world, but I am capable of playing different kinds of roles that emotionally I could get into. — Andrew Dice Clay

I wasn't even going to do acting. I don't know how it even happened, to be honest. I was going to go into psychology or something like that. Or business. And then some moment of madness took over and I decided, 'Oh, I'm gonna go to London and try to be an actor.' — Amrita Acharia

Sometimes in the life of an actor you're not getting offered any jobs that speak to you. The trouble with acting is that you're only as good as your opportunities. — Ethan Hawke

When I'm acting, I have zero control, and it's the scariest thing anyone can do in that field because, you know, your face is always the one that's out there in front of the camera, and any number of things can happen to you once you've done your work. It can be edited badly, it can be distributed badly, or it can not be distributed at all. And I've certainly experienced that; every actor has. — Amber Tamblyn

I felt a gravitational pull to the material so that there's a certain element of acting that's not really necessary. I've really liked this in foreign movies before or I've observed others working with them and I've noticed that there's a method that goes on where the actors try and get the children, like the child actor, to interact with them in a real way. It seems like you're the adult trying to get the kid to fall in love with him. — Brendan Fraser

Knowing that my granddad was a highly respected actor wasn't necessarily intimidating, but it definitely meant there was always a pressure to live up to his reputation. I think that's why acting wasn't something I even considered doing, as a kid. — Steven R. McQueen

For an actor, if you're not doing a job, you can't just practice acting. Your instrument is your whole person. — Charlotte Rampling

It wasn't anything that I thought I was going to be - a singer or an actor or anything like that. I really started acting just because I loved it, and it was more from a need to act and express myself. — Meital Dohan

No one is really a method actor, everyone has their way of going about it, preparing for it, but method is preparation, it's what you do to prepare. So my method is to read the script. Some actors' method is to read the script a hundred times and in the doing of it, to immerse themselves in as much of the reality as possible. Me, I believe strictly in acting. If I am out of breath, I'm out of breath. I ain't running nowhere. — Morgan Freeman

I learned so much by being an actor, and part of my sort-of development as a writer is big thanks to the scripts I read in my acting life. — Joel Edgerton

When you're a working actor and you're happy to be one, you can't focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself. — Olivia Wilde

I'm an actor; I have made my living by acting, and I almost think I owe it to the public to express my feelings and not as a character on a screen but as myself. — Kirk Douglas

There is a need for aloneness, which I don't think most people realise for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you're acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like sort of a chunk of you. — Marilyn Monroe

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting. — Armand Assante

... as a convention, you get up and walk to the window to make the audience believe that you're looking out. It's for the audience, not for you! And what it means to you is something emotional [...] If you went to the Actors Studio you'd spend six months seeing the snow before you could say, 'Look at the snow.' This takes a terrible burden away from the actor, who thinks he's got to see the woods and the snow. 'Give me my gun! I see a rabbit! Give me my gun!' "

Meisner sounds thrilled at the possibility of a hunt.

"That happens when you're still sitting there reading. Then when they put in the scenery you move to the window. Isn't that simple? How simple it is to solve the problem of seeing things when you know that it's all in you emotionally, and that walking to the window is only a convention. — Sanford Meisner

As an actor, acting is like playing a sport. You do this thing that's intangible, and while it's happening, it's great. But then when it's done, there's really no tangible product. Someone else is capturing it and turning it into something tangible. — Chris Evans

Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion. — Marilyn Monroe

The real challenge in acting is in comedy. It's easier to get that gasp in a drama. Not easy, because you still have to find that emotional pitch. And when you do something in drama and you hear that sob from the audience it's so fulfilling. But as a comic actor, when the laugh is supposed to come and you punch in that line and nothing happens it is dreadful. It's horrific and you feel like dying right there. — George Takei

I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles. — Chadwick Boseman

Singers come and go, but if you're a good actor, you can last a long time. — Elvis Presley

I don't know how to play myself. I'm not interested enough in myself. That's just not how I was educated. That's not how I learned to become an actor. Acting is creating a character. — Corey Stoll

Nicole crumpled - just let her legs give way and fell to the floor, hunched and sobbing. Hayley looked at me. Even Rafe did. Uncertain looks from both of them. I had to admit, Nicole was a good actor. If I hadn't seen her switch from "sweet Nicole" to "raving lunatic Nicole" in a heartbeat at the campsite, I might have believed her myself. — Kelley Armstrong

My family took a vacation to Universal Studios when I was really young. Me and my brother Richard - who's also an actor - were both really intrigued by seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff of how films are made. We kind of begged our parents to get into acting. — Jonathan Jackson

Without discipline and detachment, an actor is an emotional slob, spilling his insides out. This abandonment is having an unfortunate vogue. It is tasteless, formless, absurd. Without containment there is no art. All this vomiting and wheezing and bursting at the seams is no more great acting than the convulsions of raving maniacs. — Bette Davis

I don't come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background. — Abdellatif Kechiche

Acting is the great love of my life. It gives you permission to use all parts of yourself. Permission to be the hero, the love interest, the comedian, the villain. Transformation excites me. So does truth. Nothing is more thrilling, hilarious, and tragic than the truth. Those things motivated me to become an actor. Also, they always have the best food on set. — Blake Griffin

Life is sacred. Life is art. Life is sacred art. The art of sacred living means being a holy actor, acting from the soul rather than the ego. The soul is out of space and time and hence always available, an ever-present potential of our being. It is up to each of us to celebrate and to actualize our being and to turn each meal, conversation, outfit, letter, and so on, into art. Every mundane activity is an opportunity for full authentic self-expression. The soul is our artistic self, our capacity for transforming every dimension of our lives into art and theater. — Gabrielle Roth

I've never agreed with the conventional wisdom that 'actors are great liars.' If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be 'actors are terrible liars,' because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What's called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary. — Rob Lowe

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

So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting. — Ice-T

It's like, to me, acting is like a child walking in the park, the better the actor, the greater the playground he has. — Logan Lerman

Acting, music, painting ... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all. — Billy Boyd

Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before. — Michael Shurtleff

I don't know so much about making it, because I think of myself as a working actor who's always got my eye on what's going to be the next job. I've been acting for 22 years, and I think there's something to be said for simply staying in the game. — Leslie Hope

Actors and directors have written about it, psychologists, philosophers, social scientists, and even biologists have pondered it. What is acting, and how is it done? How does someone become someone else? Can someone become someone else? How much of what an actor does is due to that mysterious quality we call talent? — Richard Brestoff

The acting area is a sacred space... where the actor cannot die. — Michael Goldman

To be an actress and act crazy is really fun for me, to be able to be acting like you'd never be able to act in your real life and scream and freak out. It's an interesting test for an actor. — Alexandra Daddario