Quotes & Sayings About Actors

Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting. — Ang Lee

Whenever I mention Greg Kinnear's name to anyone, they always say, "Oh, love him!" He's a really terrific actor, and very funny. — Miranda Otto

I detest acting because it is sheer drudgery. — Tallulah Bankhead

Do remember, though, that unless you're a playwright, the result [dialogue] isn't what you want; it's only an element of what you want. Actors embody and re-create the words of drama. In fiction, a tremendous amount of story and character may be given through the dialogue, but the story-world and its people have to be created by the storyteller. If there's nothing in it but disembodied voices, too much is missing. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It's always fun to do action and explosion, but I really enjoyed directing the emotion of the actors. — Roel Reine

Your crew becomes your family and you trust the director and the other actors on the set, and it's a very safe place. — Aleksa Palladino

I think actors become jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. — Josh Lucas

Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies. — Thomas Merton

Anytime you spend 15 or 16 hours a day with someone, five days a week for six months, that's more time than some people spend with their own families, so it does affect the dynamic between the actors. — Eddie McClintock

I don't want to just be an actor my whole life. I mean I do want to be an actor my whole life but not only an actor, I want to be an artist. — Ansel Elgort

I've always wanted to be like the Hollywood Golden Age actors. — Julianne Hough

In a very short period of time, actors can become kind of relevant and hot. — David Cassidy

One name always stands out when it comes to actors taking on the monsters of our nightmares - Robert Englund. In the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' series, Englund kept us awake as night with a striped shirt and his special glove. — Rob Manuel

Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor. — Laurence Olivier

I'm an infant with Shakespeare; I'm kind of learning how to walk. I am trying to decipher the code, you know? I do my research. And I get a clear understanding of what the language is. It is a tremendous process I have to go through as I am sure all actors do, finding the gems hidden in his language. — Ruben Santiago-Hudson

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around. — Howard Schultz

You have actors who begin at a certain young age and there's very little change in their technique and the depth of their performances; they're the same 30 years later. — Alec Baldwin

Norms appearing in the form of law entitle actors to exercise their rights or liberties. However, one cannot determine which of these laws are legitimate simply by looking at the form of individual rights. Only by bringing in the discourse principle can one show that each person is owed a right to the greatest possible measure of equal liberties that are mutually compatible. — Jurgen Habermas

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before. — Benedict Cumberbatch

Actors are crazy or we wouldn't be doing this. — Eileen Brennan

There's a reason people love watching blooper reels of actors falling about laughing. — Mathew Baynton

At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them. — Harold Ramis

I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn't be anything else. — Daniel Craig

My parents are actors as well, so I grew up around that world. It was always a very romantic, mythical world. They did a lot of theater, so to me an actor was getting to come backstage and dressing room mirrors with bulbs around them and trying on people's costumes. It was very exciting to me as a child. — Phoebe Fox

I heard Bob Weinstein actually likened actors to baseball players. You work for a while then all of a sudden you go through a dry spell. — Michael Cera

For aspiring actors out there, I would say stay focused and don't let anyone pull you away from your goals. Shoot for the stars so that if you ever fall short you can land on the clouds. — Ryan Guzman

A lot of actors think that what we do is so important, like we're saving people's lives or something. — Kristen Stewart

The Dutch film industry is a pretty small community, so within Holland, I think most actors know each other and have worked with each other. — Michiel Huisman

It is a common perception that actors don't get along. — Deepika Padukone

When you begin to believe you have license because you are a special person breathing special oxygen, that's when you're in big trouble. That's the road to insanity. And a lot of people in the studios are like that. They believe that they are special. I do think actors are blessed, or cursed, with maybe a slightly heightened awareness, which you have to use. — Anthony Hopkins

Mr. [John] Barrymore's smile was the smile of an actor who hates actors, and who knows that he is going to kill two or three before the play is over. I am not an actor-killer, but I like my Hamlets to dislike actors, if you know what I mean, and I think you don't. — John Barrymore

Noomi [Rapace] felt fresh. And she's passionate and ambitious in all the right ways. She's a tour de force. Every time I was trying to have a discussion with the actors, she'd be pulling out a blade out from underneath her gypsy skirt and menace someone saying, "Maybe I should slit your throat." — Kam Williams

I'm not one of those playwrights who says, 'Show up, hit your marks, and don't talk to me!' I always want to hear from the other artists involved, whether it's the director, the lighting tech, or the actors. — Pearl Cleage

Actors are as anxious about the state of audiences as aviators are over weather conditions. — Katharine Cornell

When student-actors see people and the way they behave when together, see the color of the sky, hear the sounds in the air, feel the ground beneath them and the wind on their faces, they get a wider view of their personal world and development in the theater is quickened. The world provides the material for the theater and artistic growth develops hand-in-hand with one's recognition of it and one's self within it. — Viola Spolin

Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance. — Natalie Portman

You act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors, because your souls are not used up by life. — Stella Adler

I grew up watching American movies. My favorite movies have always been American, since as long as I can remember. I always had this huge respect for American filmmakers and American actors. — Noomi Rapace

I love actors. I married one. OK, I married a fantastic one. — Felicity Huffman

I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven't stopped studying. There's an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for the role. — Reggie Lee

Women are always murdered and maimed, and they're never given their rightful place as lead characters! And I think [creator Michael Hirst] has just written what should have been written a long time ago. There shouldn't be anything that different about Vikings, but there is, because there've just been so many shows that have not stepped up to the plate and given female actors and female characters equal footing. — Clive Standen

This acting's serious! And I really respect those actors. It's a tough business to be able to be something you're not and be natural and convince people on camera. — Michael Strahan

Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? — Gene Siskel

God is the poet; men are but the actors. The great dramas of earth were written in heaven. — Honore De Balzac

How many times, in any actor's life, do you get to be a part of something that has a legacy like [Buffy]? I think that's only fortunate. I don't see the negative. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

It's always interesting for me to watch the pilot of an established show because you see how the writers and actors weren't really sure what the show was and what the dynamics were. If you look at the pilot for 'Seinfeld,' for example, it's practically unrecognizable. — Johnny Galecki

I've got a black woolen hat and it's got Pervert written across the front of it. It's the name of the clothing label. And I was with my wife and my baby at the supermarket and I didn't think. I just put my hat on Clara's head, because it was cold. And the looks. I couldn't figure out why I was getting death looks. And then I realized my 10-month old baby's wearing a hat with the word Pervert written on it and these people were like, 'There's Satan! There's Satan out with his kid!' And then I made a point of her wearing it every time we went there. — Ewan McGregor

I think most actors are insecure and scared of rejection. — Alex Pettyfer

You can meet lots of actors who are in their own world and do their own thing, and they have no idea what's going on and they don't know anyone's name around them. — Richard Madden

Strange, how such a small realization can affect everyone's life forever. In movies there is always a carefully staged moment - a big crescendo of music, close- ups of the actors' faces, the camera slowly pulling away to let all this sink in for the viewer ... but, in real life, most all of the extraordinary things happen with no more loudness than a whisper. — Silas House

Actors sure have stories. We always have stories. At the end of our careers, all we have to take with us is our stories, and we have many of them. — Michael Eklund

And what movies we saw! All the actors and actresses whose photographs I collected, with their look of eternity! Their radiance, their eyes, their faces, their voices, the suavity of their movements! Their clothes! Even in prison movies, the stars shone in their prison clothes as if tailors had accompanied them in their downfall. — Paula Fox

As soon as I suspect a fine effect is being achieved by accident I lose interest. I am not interested ... in unskilled labor ... The scientific actor is an even worker. Any one may achieve on some rare occasion an outburst of genuine feeling, a gesture of imperishable beauty, a ringing accent of truth; but your scientific actor knows how he did it. He can repeat it again and again and again. He can be depended on. — Minnie Maddern Fiske

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag. — William H. Macy

Why do writers write? Why do actors act? Why do painters paint? It doesn't pay much, unless you're very successful. It's who we are. — Lori Lesko

Having been an actor, I always want to leave room for the actors to find their comfort zone, so I don't like to be too rigid in how I plan my shots. It's different if you have weeks to rehearse and you can rehearse on your sets or in your locations and you can plan that out with your actors, but in modern independent filmmaking, you don't really have that time. You have to have a certain level of improvisation. — Eric Balfour

As a film director I like to have the actors create their own close-ups. It's an older style of filmmaking. — Stanley Tucci

Marriage is hard, and it can be tough when you're both actors. — Sarah Parish

In countries operating a largely capitalist system, there does not appear to be a wide understanding among its actors and overseers of either its advantages or its hazards. — Edmund Phelps

Actors are the flowers of the film, of the set, and of the director. The term 'Flowers of the Screen' holds a deep meaning. — Kim Jee-woon

I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.' — Philip Seymour Hoffman

There is a strange pecking order among actors. Theatre actors look down on film actors, who look down on TV actors. Thank God for reality shows, or we wouldn't have anybody to look down on. — George Clooney

There are certain stars who are not actors. I don't want to be that type. — Natalie Wood

The radical rightwing pegs Hollywood as a leftist town, which is completely wrong. There are a lot of actors, writers, and directors who talk a liberal agenda ... but all the studio bosses, for as long as there have been studios, have all been as far rightwing as you can possibly imagine. — Paul Haggis

I was about 6 or 7, I would have said I wanted to be an actor and an artist. And that just kind of kept honing itself around film and getting closer to film. — Todd Haynes

I also think the reason I like to do a one-man show is you're not limited into the confines of a role. There's so many facets to actors and I think it's important to push those limits, as far as what a person can do. — Jason Graae

I think at a certain point actors need to start taking responsibility for the kinds of stories they want to tell. — Jason Ritter

I want stuff to play as wide as possible. I want to be able to see ... if I could play the whole thing in a master and it could be compelling enough, that'd be great. Then it simplifies my day, it simplifies life for the actors when you could just focus on that. But by the same token I don't want to be forced into coverage. So I want it to be as good from every angle and I need to get as many of the kind of shadings that I want from every angle. — David Fincher

People should be shrouded in mystery. Especially actors. No, hang on, maybe actors should be blown up. — Michael Gambon

I saw several actresses play the part. I did not in fact, as far as I know, do anything that any of the other actresses did. I don't think actresses do that. I think that what we do is we see a role as a role, we don't see it as a person. We look at the role and think, 'What can I, as an actor, bring to that part? — Polly Bergen

I think there needs to be more care taken for the actor. You know, we are not props! — Anika Noni Rose

What we're supposed to do as actors is be able to portray real human beings and emotions. And if you grow up in this bubble of showbiz and you only know people who make movies, you don't really have an understanding of the world outside. — Emily Browning

To go into more specifics regarding actors, whether they're from Korea or the U.S., all actors know if they are loved by the director. When they feel that love from the director, they respond by giving a great performance on camera. Also, everyone on set - the crew, the actors - they were aware of the film's message and its broad theme, so these big issues were never discussed on set. — Kim Jee-woon

I wish it was a little easier for an actor to later go into singing and have it be accepted, but maybe I can still do it. — Zachary Levi

All good actors are easy to work with. It's the ones that aren't very good who tend to be very difficult. — Tom Wilkinson

I've never had a plan. You look for different actors you want to work with or different subjects you want to explore, or sometimes it's just a momentary fancy. — Michelle Forbes

As an actor it's like, go with whatever excites you as an actor. What are you're going to invest yourself in as a character? What are you going to get into? Have a variety of characters to play. — Milo Ventimiglia

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded. — Kristen Bell

This is not the 19th century, where actors are expected to play completely opposite roles. We're not typecast, but we're brought in because somebody thinks that it's a good fit, so you make it a better fit. — Kate Mulgrew

It's great to write for actors when you know who they are. I think I prefer it. — Jason Gann

What then is the difference between film and theatre? Or should one not rather ask: what are the differences? Let us be content wi th the reply that the screen has two dimensions and the stage three, that the screen presents photographs and the stage living actors. All the subtler differences stem from these. The camera can show us all sorts of things
from close-ups of insects to panoramas of prairies
which the stage cannot even suggest, and it can move from one to another with much more dexterity than any conceivable stage. The stage, on the other hand, can be revealed in the unsurpassable beauty of three-dimensional shapes, and the stage actor establishes between himself and his audience a contact real as electricity. — Eric Bentley

I kind of don't believe in actors directing themselves. Obviously some people have done it well, but I don't see how I could. It's funny that you ask, because I've just been thinking that maybe I'd rather direct The Bell Jar than act in it. It's a huge leap to go from a short to a feature, so I'm tentative - I'm like, Well, that's just so triple-type-A personality of you. — Julia Stiles

I love working with male actors, and I think there's a tendency to write really interesting characters that would work solely alongside men where they would be in a man's world and have to deal with that, and it creates a lot of interesting storylines. For me, it's kind of circumstantial, but I definitely enjoy it. — Elisabeth Moss

All the things that happen to people in the industry today, the actors, what they have to put up with, all the people wanting to know every single moment of their lives - I think it's really sad. — Tab Hunter

We have little bits of comedy throughout our films but this is like a full-on comedy. I had great time. It was fun to do a comedy and see a lot of the people I worked with on our previous films and meet some new actors. It was a good experience for me. — Alex Kendrick

I'm envious of actors. You shoot a movie or you do a season of 'Big Love,' and then you're on hiatus and you have a bunch of free time. — Jack McCollough

I love her [Kimberly Peirce]. Incredibly intense is a good way of describing her. Brutally honest. Really sharp. She's a director for actors. That's what she's best at, sitting down with an actor and just getting to the heart of what a scene is. And getting to the heart of not just what the scene is and the character is, but what you are, and how to build that bridge between the "me" and the character, and those emotions. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Acting itself is quite scary. Some people say that actors are show-offs, very egotistical and all that kind of stuff, but it is quite scary. — Michael Sheen

... 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

I think that different actors bring different qualities to the Batman character. It's such a wonderful mantle to put on that I think it's a lot of fun for different actors to see how they play it. — Kevin Conroy

TV actors are doing great in Bollywood. We have our own market, our own fans, who love to see us on the big screen. — Mona Singh

Part of the work is determining through what instrument you are playing. Actors are physical, olympian storytellers and we should be able to create entire landscapes with nothing. — Ajay Naidu

I've always felt there are three sexes: men, women, and actors. And actors combine the worst qualities of the other two. — Peter Biskind

Most actors feel only one way. We're just grateful to have a job. — Seann William Scott

I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character. — Eugene Levy

The quality of writing attracts me to films, also who the other actors are, who the director is, where it's being shot. Any or all of those things. But if the writing is really appalling, then the money had better be really good. Sometimes you say yes to something you wouldn't always do because you need the money. — Charles Dance

I liken actors and movies and TV shows to football teams. We all have our favorite ones. — Kristoffer Polaha

If the [actors] are working, and I have a dinner engagement, I don't do 20 takes. I do five takes and go home. I want to go to dinner. — Woody Allen

Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

As actors you're always going to take certain roles that are in your comfort zone and take ones that aren't. — Matt Bomer