Great Actor Quotes & Sayings

I mean, it's fine when you're a kid and someone runs into the playground and goes, 'I've got this great game of pretend,' and you play ... As an actor, getting to play, getting to use your imagination and be childish - it is weird but it's wonderful. — Max Irons

The face and the actor is great, but if you were to start out and you said, My name is Humphrey, somebody would punch you out, because that's a stupid name to have. — Jamie Farr

Through all permutations and youthful poetry, I came to believe that the film actor was the great "literateur" of his time. — Jack Nicholson

It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery. — Annette Bening

To be a Dumont actor was considered to be a great honor for an actor, yet it also had its disadvantages. — Leon Askin

That's the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together. — Lindsey Buckingham

Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage door by his creditors. — L. Frank Baum

One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments. — Roger Ebert

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

I'm not a super-actorly actor, my-body-is-an-instrument type of person, but I do want to do fun, exciting, interesting things. I have a 2001 PT Cruiser. I saved my money so I can take my time and choose something that I think is great, and that's what I'm waiting for. — Paget Brewster

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

A successful swindler has to be a great salesman even more than a great actor. — David Suchet

The play is one of the very few pieces of great dramatic and comic writing that I have read in a long, long time. I was drawn to it because of the power of the writing, which gives me the actor a chance to explore many facets of myself. — Linda Lavin

When you're writing for a TV show, what's great is that you always know what actor you're writing to. — Michael Brandt

I never pretended to be a great actor. — Joel McCrea

Michael [Douglas] was just leaving the TV series The Streets of San Francisco and he said, 'Dad, let me try it.' I thought, 'Well, if I couldn't make it ... ' So, I gave it to him and he got the money, the director and the cast. The biggest disappointment for me, I always wanted to play McMurphy. They got a young actor, Jack Nicholson. I thought, 'Oh God. He will be terrible.' Then I saw the picture and, of course, he was great in it! That was my biggest disappointment that turned out to be one of the things I'm most proud of because my son Michael did it. I couldn't do it, but Michael did it. — Kirk Douglas

Michael Caine is a movie star, but he's also a great actor. I can't say that about every movie star. It's the concentration he has. — Norman Jewison

One guy told me I was a great actor, I just would never be on the cover of a magazine. — Ben Affleck

I'm lucky to just be a working actor. There are so many great actors out there and I'm just lucky to have gotten work. — Chris Messina

As an actor, you know, I love not being pigeonholed, which is great. No one really knows who I am. So that's a positive. — Kathryn Hahn

I don't want to infantilize the actor; I want to empower the actor. Actors can be many things, but all of the really good ones are really great storytellers, and I'm interested in that. If you're not interested in that as a director then you better be Stanley Kurbrick. — Paul Bettany

He [Kenneth Branagh] is the nicest guy. He is absolutely fantastic. Hes really down to earth, really friendly, and he has a great sense of humor. I really liked working with him. Hes a fantastic actor as well. Theres such a presence about him. — Emma Watson

I think I probably think about myself as an actor, which is the way most people do. I think I'm good, I don't think I'm great. I think I would hire somebody else to play me in the movie about me. — Ashton Kutcher

...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

Classics stay alive because a great actor or a great director wants to do them. — Scott Rudin

Michael [Douglas] is, I think, a great actor. He's made some very interesting pictures. When he was going to college, I was very proud of him, but when he said, 'Dad, I want to be in a play,' he had a bit part. I went to see it and Michael said, 'Dad, how was I?' I said, 'You were terrible.' I thought he would go on to be a lawyer and in three months, he was in another play and I went and, I must admit, he was great. I think he has been good in everything he's done. — Kirk Douglas

When one sees what happens in the world between the religions, the different religions - killing each other and murdering each other, it's disgusting and as far as I am concerned it's ridiculous. So I thought I might be useful, I believe in God and I believe in religion, but believe religions should belong to you. The extraordinary thing is that the Jews believe that only the Jews can go to paradise, the Christians believe that only a Christian can go to paradise and the Muslims believe that only the Muslims can go to paradise. Now why should God, in his great justice, make somebody born that cannot go to paradise - it is absurd. Please forgive me I don't mean to say it's absurd, people made it absurd. — Omar Sharif

If you have the opportunity to meet someone as an actor, it's just great fodder for you. It's wonderful source stuff that we die for. — Al Pacino

It's always hard as an actor I think to be just on the set and have the kind of confidence to be like, 'Yeah, I did that. That went perfectly. That's great.' That's more confidence than I have. — Noel Fisher

I remember in the Carpenter version, you got acquainted with the characters and really knew them. It was a real character piece. Each actor was serviced in the movie, and we tried to do that in this movie as well. I like the fact that there was a European, first-time director. I'd known of him because I'm from Europe. I knew him as a commercial director and thought one of his commercials was great. I thought it was an interesting take on such a big-budget cult classic. — Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave! — John Waters

I have never had trouble with any actor being able to visualise things. They are amazing. As long as you have your monster head on a long stick, so you can hold it up there and you can wave it around and let them see it and explain it to them, they are just great. — Dennis Muren

You can take a pitchman and make a great actor out of him, but you cannot take an actor and always make a great pitchman out of him," he says. The pitchman must make you applaud and take out your money. He must be able to execute what in pitchman's parlance is called "the turn" - the perilous, crucial moment where he goes from entertainer to businessman. — Malcolm Gladwell

Working with Jean-Claude is a lot of fun. Because he's a great actor who also happens to be a fighter. That combination doesn't usually come together anymore. Usually, you have to fight the stunt double and then act against the actor. In his case, you are fighting with a real guy. It takes a minute to get used to that. Because it doesn't happen any more. — Dolph Lundgren

I don't know the politics of Hollywood. Am I hungry for great material? Every actor is. How I can get to it, that's another story. — Chris Noth

A good actor is like a racehorse or a Ferrari. If a cylinder is missing on a Chevy, it's doesn't matter that much. But if something's not working right on a Ferrari, it makes a big difference. It's the three percent that makes the difference between good and great. It's a fine line. If you're not there, it's very painful. — Christopher Walken

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

My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. — David Crosby

'The Fight Club' DVD is great. I like anything that has really good extras because as an actor, it's really great to see the behind-the-scenes stuff and see how different actors approach their particular project. — A. J. Cook

Working with a great actor is really educational. — Gia Coppola

I thought, 'Oh, this is great,' because maybe someone who does look like me will watch 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and realize that they can be an actor if they want to be, or they can be a superhero. They can have a hero that looks like them as well. — J. August Richards

The bottom line is that I'm an actor, so when somebody pitches me a great part, it's a no-brainer. You never know what it's gonna be like, in terms of the actual experience. You can be really excited about a part that can turn out shitty, you can have a bad time, there's a bad egg or two or three, in the bunch, or the producers are weird, or something like that. — Kathy Bates

As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what." — Javier Bardem

I've played English a number of times, and used an English accent a number of times, so it becomes a little bit of an obstacle course to go, "Oh, that's teetering into Captain Jack-ville," or "This is teetering into Chocolat or Wonka." You've got to really pay attention to the places you've been. But, that's part of it. That's the great challenge. You may get it wrong. There's a very good possibility that you can fall flat on your face, but that's a healthy thing for an actor. — Johnny Depp

I want to work with great filmmakers and great actors and get better as an actor. — Bradley Cooper

When I was 11, I played the part of Rumpelstiltskin, and my teacher told me I would make a great actor. — Brian Blessed

There's this great fantasy of going to work, every day, and getting to play out what people think my life is, as a successful actor. — Robert Knepper

A great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or in verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered. — Lee Strasberg

You know what? I never really factor Hollywood into anything. I'm a black actor, so I can't really control what Hollywood thinks. I gotta go do my thing, and my jokes have got to be funny. Whatever I do has got to be great. — Jamie Foxx

As an actor, often you're stuck with these scenes in which a great period of time is in between them - for example, if you do a biopic, it might be a year, it might be a decade, you never know. — Aden Young

I'm not a great actor - let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink. There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good. — Steve McQueen

I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker, who was such a warm, friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from. — John Cleese

That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from. — Matt Lauria

It's so wonderful and creative to go in and tell the wardrobe department what you want to wear and how you want your hair to look. That's great, for an actor. The actors get to do more than they would, normally. — Jim Piddock

I don't like improv at all. It terrifies me. I like to know exactly what I'm going to say. Being surprised does make me a better actor. Anytime I'm afraid of something that makes me rise to the occasion, it scares me, but it's what makes great actors - being in the moment. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson

I always get a little bit pissed off when stand-up comedy is not recognised as being as good a craft as being an actor. We give Oscars to people and it's like, 'Aw, this person is the greatest person on earth', but being an actor is pretty easy in comparison to stand-up comedy. It's no surprise that several stand-up comics have gone on to become great actors. I don't know any great actors that have gone on to become great stand-up comics. — Jim Jefferies

As an actor, you're constantly searching for that great character. Also, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they've done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as basically, the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies, but no one seems to be able to categorize him. — Leonardo DiCaprio

Doing voiceovers is so great because even though many people would think it's just your voice, you really do use all your physicality. I've done everything from playing a butterfly to Alice in Wonderland when she's 10 feet tall, so it allows you to be an actor and build new characters. — Ashley Bell

A close friend of mine, Annie Leibovitz, who I've known for forty years, photographs celebrities every single day of the week but they all seem to look the same even though she's one of the most creative photographers alive. They all just look the same. Brad Pitt is a great actor but all the pictures of Brad Pitt look the same. — Lawrence Schiller

There's something really amazing about watching an actor like Michael C. Hall or Jennifer Carpenter, who are completely professional and do everything so brilliantly, but yet can have a really great time on set. — Brea Grant

A lot of people try to paint this child actor stigma, but I always looked at it as a great opportunity. — Zachery Ty Bryan

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience. — Matt LeBlanc

The first state an actor experiences onstage is the one he just experienced in life. One needs great courage not to portray this experience. One must surrender entirely to the power of one s artistic nature. It will do all the necessary things. Do not impose any solution upon yourself in advance. The quality to develop in an actor is courage. — Yevgeny Vakhtangov

I think the great thing about the Jack Ryan films is that the plot and the story always take center stage. If you've done your job as the actor portraying Jack Ryan, you are present enough to make an impact, but you let the story shine. — Chris Pine

One of the great, truly extraordinary privileges of being an actor is to interact with individuals from all walks of life, you know, from avocations that you wouldn't ordinarily interact with or people you wouldn't ordinarily interact with. — Matt Lauria

Any great character is the combination of a brilliant actor and the right writing. — Brad Falchuk

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself. — Zhang Ziyi

It's actually really great to be a student and an actor, because I get to do this job that I love, then just when I think my head might explode, I get to go to school where they don't really care about what magazine cover I'm on. — Julia Stiles

I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol. — Steven Seagal

I'm so blessed to have been a working actor. If they still would like to make me a superstar, I'm available, but so far, being a working actor has been great. It's taken me everywhere. — Patrick Fabian

An actress friend of mine shared a great trick. She told me to stick my tongue behind my teeth when I smile to keep from over-smiling. If you smile without doing it, sometimes your gums show a little too much. It's an actor's trick! — Jessica Chastain

I've always thought Ed Burns was a profoundly underrated actor. He's a great director, obviously. A great director/writer. But I think he's a stunning actor, too. — John C. McGinley

I learned a great lesson early on, even before I was really an actor, from that movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' that John Hughes made: that you could make a movie that's really, really, really, really funny, and sometimes you can still achieve ... making the audience feel very deep emotions as well. — Joel Edgerton

One of the things about being a minority actor is that you don't have that opportunity as some of your counterparts to keep that flow, to constantly be going from one thing to the other, so when you see really great performances out there by some black folks, you know it's coming from somewhere deep, because they just don't work as much. — Georg Stanford Brown

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

Every time I go to Europe, I remember that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face everywhere. There's James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe - windows of the Champs Elysees, discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden, t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed - the great films he would have directed, the great performances he would have given, the great humanitarian he would have become, and yet, he's the greatest actor and star I have ever known. — Dennis Hopper

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

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

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

The great thing about being an actor in a film is that you're able to start knowing exactly where you're going to finish and really paint something in between. You can work to know the arc you need to build. Whereas in television, it is open-ended, and you're constantly guessing. There are pros and cons to both. — Rose McIver

I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene ... — Minnie Maddern Fiske

We use important words too frequently and they lose value; for instance, charm and great. An actor or musician often is proclaimedgreat when we really mean he is outstanding. — Eleanor Robson Belmont

I'm always drawn towards the darker stuff, because I think it's just a lot more interesting. But it's also good fun doing the comedy, and I think that's why 'Misfits' has been great in that way, as you get a really good balance. I think it's best to try and do everything as an actor, really. — Iwan Rheon

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 just read 'The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.' To be married 25 years, you have to put as much energy as I put into being an actor or being a great football player into being a better husband and a better father. — Terry Crews

The atmosphere and the environment that you get on a Chris Nolan film that he and Emma [Tomson] create is one where you feel very safe and very confident and able to experiment with characters. It's a great place to be as an actor. — Christopher Nolan

What's great about being a character actor is you know that you can survive forever. It's not about the gloss of your eyebrows. — Martin Short

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

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth. — Larry Merchant

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

I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.' — Peter Berg

The great actors we had came from the actor-manager theaters. Not only did they create a team, they were the generals working with the soldiers. — Steven Berkoff

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work. — Sam Mendes

One of the secrets of being a great photographic model, as it is for a great film actor, is that you let the camera in. It's an intimacy that the model or actor creates with the lens, that then transmits itself to the viewer. — Mary Harron

I have a large watch collection, and classic watches are especially important to me. I had a silver Rolex, and I actually gave it to my little brother. He wears it every day. He's an actor, so whenever he goes to an audition, he can look down, see it, and it gives him confidence. It was a great thing to pass on. — Nate Berkus

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

I've never wanted an Oscar, although they are reassuring to an actor who doesn't know how really great he is. — Bob Hope

Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit. — Greta Gerwig

The growing pains of ... being an actor, that was a little frustrating at times because you feel like you have great capacity to do many things. And yet there seems to be a misunderstanding about who you are and what you're trying to do. And that requires patience, and people eventually will understand. — Matt Dillon