Meisner Acting Quotes & Sayings

There was only one elective at my college for acting, but thank God for that elective because we had a great teacher who introduced me to the Meisner technique for acting. Once I read that book, I said, 'Wow, if I could do that and have that honest moment on stage, that would be amazing.' — Nestor Carbonell

The greatest piece of acting or music or sculpture or what-have-you always has its roots in the truth of human emotion. — Sanford Meisner

Your acting will not be good until it is only yours. That's true of music, acting, anything creative. You work until finally nobody is acting like you. — Sanford Meisner

An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. — Sanford Meisner

Acting can be fun. Don't let it get around. — Sanford Meisner

Acting is the ability to live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances — Sanford Meisner

Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh? — William Shakespeare

Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances. — Sanford Meisner

Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to another. All things change, nothing perishes. The soul passes hither and thither, occupying now this body, now that ... As a wax is stamped with certain figures, then melted, then stamped anew with others, yet it is always the same wax. So, the Soul being always the same, yet wears at different times different forms. — Pythagoras

Acting is not talking, it's living off the other fellow!!! — Sanford Meisner

I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you. — Philip Dormer Stanhope

Love ... is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself — James Joyce

Every little moment has a meaning all its own. — Sanford Meisner

If your knees ain't dirty...you ain't doin' it right! — Sidda Lee Rain

The text is your greatest enemy. — Sanford Meisner

It doesn't matter how many copies of my book I sell. The important thing is that the person reading it likes it. — Jennifer Raygoza

He stares at me, not saying a word. I stare right back, lost in his eyes and determined to get my point across. If he wants to have a staring contest, he'll lose, hands down. I know a good thing when I see it. — J.C. Patrick

Find in yourself those human things which are universal. — Sanford Meisner

Acting is fun ... don't let that get around! — Sanford Meisner

How beautiful the house was with
its magnolia trees lining the drive,
their branches outstretched as if they
were beckoning him inside. Rose tipped
blossoms caught the last of the sun's
golden light, giving the flowers
an ethereal glow that shimmered
and looked magical. — Ellen Read

Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions. — Sanford Meisner

I want to be able to manipulate and control my career from the creative side. — David Henrie

The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting. — Sanford Meisner

Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing. — Sanford Meisner

I use my music to tune myself. — Paul Caponigro

... 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

If you have the emotion, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it don't bother; just say your lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion. — Sanford Meisner

On Sunday August 5, 2012, I was among a group of people who witnessed the Rover landing on Mars in real time at NASA's Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. — Ahmed Zewail

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character. — Robert Duvall

The only way to deal with yourself as an actor is to follow the emotional truth of what you have to do under the imaginary circumstances. And as you develop you become confident. You come to believe in what you're doing and trust it because it's out of you. — Sanford Meisner

I went to theater school, and if I spent time with one school of thought in this whole acting game, it's the Meisner approach of improvise-based acting. This does not mean that you improvise your acting, but that you focus on the other person. — Mackenzie Davis

The foundation of acting is the reality of doing. — Sanford Meisner

Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts. — Sanford Meisner