Good Actors Life Quotes & Sayings

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life. — Bette Davis

One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible ... — Robin Wasserman

Competition is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get along. And they are therefore not first-rate actors. The good actor is the one who competes, willingly, who enjoys competing. An actor must compete, or die ... Peacefulness and the avoidance of trouble won't help in his acting. It is just the opposite he must seek. — Michael Shurtleff

Every choice you make as an actor ends up being really influential on your life, because you're spending a lot of time working on this project, and you want to make sure you're making good choices and you're not making them for the wrong reasons. I just want to be careful and not jump into anything. — Michael Cera

You know, I think a lot of times what happens when we as actors know we're playing a bad guy is we get into bad guy mode. You know what, man? In real life, bad people do good things too and good people do bad things. So you don't necessarily have to be the stereotypical bad guy to still do bad things. — Laz Alonso

Two of an actress's greatest assets are love and pain. A great actress, even a good actress, must have plenty of both in her life. — Katharine Hepburn

I have done some wonderful television, but you know, there's not as much exceptional material as there is in the theatre. So I do a lot of theatre, but really, as with most actors, I just love going from one to another. It's stimulating, it's diverting, it's a different way of life, and you know, I dearly like a good mix. — Lindsay Duncan

Most of my experiences have been positive. I know I live a very good life. I'm severely overpaid, but there are people who are much more overpaid than I am. I've been very lucky, and I know that, because I see guys all the time who are struggling and can't make a dime, and they're much better actors than me. — Kurt Fuller

I feel very fortunate, I've been exposed to a lot of different cultures. If I wasn't from a multi-ethnic background, I wouldn't have had these great experiences. And one of the things that makes me a good actor is life experience. — Navi Rawat

I happen to be very good with younger actors because I have extremely vivid memories of that time of my life, and kids are just funny. — David M. Evans

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

The way I look at the world, if you can't find a way to get something good out of the experience, then you have lived an unhappy life. All the actors I have worked with, superstars or otherwise, I have enjoyed. — James Rebhorn

As actors, we have a philosophy, which is this: great fun. That has transmitted itself into the dwarf philosophy of life. We're up for a brawl, we're up for a bloody good feed, and if you've got food, well, we share what we've got, and so should you. — John Callen

I find that a lot of actors who are good and open to challenges have lived a full life. When you walk into an audition, you have more to say for yourself because you come from the real world. It's more enticing for directors, I think. — Idris Elba

I'm frequently surprised, sometimes bugged off, and sometimes happy, depending on the actor. It's a fact of life that just as often as not an actor can breathe life into a line as he can destroy it by misinterpretation, and I've been blessed frequently by having good actors. — Rod Serling

Some great actors have had substantial training and some have not. I am biased toward the well-trained theatre actor because I am passionate about theatre and the special devotion it takes to pursue that love. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between success as a working actor and training. Mark Duplass ("The League," Your Sister's Sister) has never had a formal acting class in his life. As long as you're a good, compelling actor, you will book jobs. Actors who graduate from Julliard (Jessica Chastain) book jobs and actors who have never had an acting class in their life work regularly in both TV and film. — Cathy Reinking

I really feel that the best actors out there are very centric. They're really connected. They're not in a, 'What about me' state, and I think that's a good lesson in life. — Cameron Mathison

I'm a fan of movies and television shows, and I don't expect anything from actors and actresses, or anyone, but good work. What they do. I don't feel like I deserve a piece of their personal life, or even what they think about the work they do. — Kristen Stewart

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy's life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it. — Angelina Jolie

In the production of a good play with a good cast and a knowing director a kind of banding-together occurs; there is formed a fraternity whose members share a mutual sense of destiny. In these five blocks, where the rapping of the tap-dancer's feet and the bawling of the phonographs in the record-shop mix with the roar of the Broadway traffic; where the lonely, the perverted, and the lost wander like souls in Dante's hell and the life of the spirit seems impossible, there are still little circles of actors in the dead silence of empty theaters, with a director in their center, and a new creation of life taking place — Arthur Miller

I learned very quickly that the hard thing in life is to make good films. Technically, filmmaking is the camera and the actor telling the story and that's what I'm more interested in doing. — Matthew Vaughn

Also a good director and good dialogue. That's very important because you're bringing the words to life. So it's very important for an actor to have good dialogue. — Julia Garner

I think a lot of times it just looks like Hollywood actors in Halloween costumes, you know? And I think what we're going to do with Fantastic Four is going to be very grounded and it made sense to me. When I read the script, I didn't feel like I was reading this larger-than-life, incredible superhero tale. These are all very human people that end up having to become I guess what is known as the Fantastic Four. So for me it was just a really good story and gives me an opportunity to play something different from my own skin. It's a proper character and that's my favorite stuff to do. — Miles Teller

My path was to be an actor and it's been very good to me in life. It's broadened my horizons and given me a lot of gifts. — Nicole Kidman

Do you think that the people on reality T.V. shows are kind of good actors? I mean they would have to be! You can't ignore all the cameras and, you know, the whole situation of being on a reality show... But here is what I'm wondering. Do you think that they think of themselves as actors? Or do you think that they are living their lives behind an impenetrable shield? Like their entire approach to life is the same as an actor's approach to a performance? So when they had to act natural in an unnatural situation it was sort of no big deal. — Kevin Hooyman

I love that process in which there is no safety net. Then the actor also can allow mistakes, because there's no such a thing as a mistake. You're working with good actors, that thing that starts as a mistake becomes actually the life of what is going to follow in the scene. I find that it is fantastic, and for me it is easier than for the actors. — Alfonso Cuaron

Actors are as good as they allow themselves to be, and to portray life, you have to have as broad an experience of it as you possibly can, so everything's worth it. — Liev Schreiber

My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits. — Peter O'Toole

When actors encounter a mishap during a stage performance,
they transform it for good purpose by employing a technique called,
"use the difficulty." How can you "use the difficulty" in your life? — Gina Greenlee

Perhaps teachers must be good actors where lessons are concerned, but in life outside the class, we mustn't hide from our pupils our individual spirits. — Larisa Kuznetsova

There is a theory that watching unbearable stories about other people lost in grief and rage is good for you - may cleanse you of your darkness. Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone? Not much. What if an actor could do it for you? Isn't that why they are called actors? They act for you. You sacrifice them to action. And this sacrifice is a mode of deepest intimacy of you with your own life. Within it you watch [yourself] act out the present or possible organization of your nature. You can be aware of your own awareness of this nature as you never are at the moment of experience. The actor, by reiterating you, sacrifices a moment of his own life in order to give you a story of yours. — Anne Carson