Quotes & Sayings About Theatre Acting

The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe. — P.S. Baber

Tell yourself that the world is outside, that it's not to be hidden from you, that you are going to thrust yourself forward and be relaxed in the world. You have chosen a field where you're going to be hurt to the blood. But to retreat from the pain is death — Stella Adler

I took theatre and stuff in college, then I took a bunch of different acting classes here in L.A. Sometimes when I have a hard audition, I'll call my acting coach and he'll come help me. I actually get more nervous in acting class than I do at an actual audition. It's actually a really great way to get over your nerves. — Melissa Ordway

I majored in musical theatre performance at college, then went through years of waiting tables and temping while looking for acting work. — Brooke Elliott

I started acting as a child in Community Theatre but I didn't do any serious stuff. It was all musicals like 'Annie' and 'Wizard of Oz.' I was always in the chorus. — Michelle Williams

I went through a low phase for two years when I had a string of flops. At that time, I even felt that I was in the wrong profession and that I should leave acting. But thankfully, I utilised that time to introspect and went on a self-exploration trip. I did theatre in between, and it helped grow the fire within me. — Randeep Hooda

You'll never really be great unless you aim high. — Stella Adler

I've had plenty of lessons about film acting and theatre acting. — John Boyega

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

The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal. — Iris Murdoch

I went to school to play sports, but I got involved in theatre in college kind of by mistake. I ended up taking an acting class almost just to get rid of an arts requirement, but I wound up in this wonderful acting class with this teacher named Alma Becker who really saved my life. I was just kind of this knucklehead kid from DC and I was in and out of trouble all of the time. I took a theatre class and she really discovered something in me and I absolutely fell in love with it. — Jon Bernthal

I wanted to be a therapist if the acting didn't work. I also did a lot waitressing and odd jobs. I'd audition but couldn't get hired to save my life. I'd do Off-Broadway theatre and that was great and I was excited and thrilled, feeling like, 'Well, it's Off-Broadway, but there's still the Broadway in there.' — Jennifer Aniston

I was going to be a High School teacher. I was studying at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, up in Canada. I was also acting in a wonderfully supportive theatre community in Edmonton. There's a lot of support for theatre there. So, I was having a great time, but I didn't consider acting as a serious career initially, because even the most successful actors that I know in Edmonton are not super successful. Acting over there is just not a success-oriented career. — Nathan Fillion

I did some theatre. I had some smaller roles in a couple TV shows and films. I used to think I did a lot of acting, but my 'career' started when I started 'Homeland'. — Morgan Saylor

Honestly, I really don't like acting. I don't enjoy it. What I do like is going to a movie theatre and seeing my face on a poster. I like seeing my name on a poster. That is cool. — Gabriel Iglesias

When I began doing theatre in high school I saw that I could get laughs from people but I didn't really connect that to going on and becoming a comedian. I was interested in acting and while I was at Boston College I was part of an improv group, Mother's Fleabag, which had a long history and has been known as one of the best college improvisation groups in the U.S. — Amy Poehler

I honed my passion for acting in theatre and education, and I think it's important not to belittle the child audience. — Rhys Ifans

I started doing community theatre as a way to make friends, and that was when I caught the acting bug. — Christina Hendricks

From there I did a one year theatre acting course in Fife, and then three years of drama school in London. — Ewan McGregor

One mustn't allow acting to be like stoc kbroker - you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement. — John Gielgud

I was always interested in the arts as a child - drawing, painting, and piano - but acting became a favourite. I was a major theatre geek in high school - if I wasn't in the drama room at lunch rehearsing, I'd be in the art room finishing up some type of project. — Laura Mennell

I've never been a really big fan of theatre. I don't know why. It's so much for effort. It's much more difficult for me than stage acting just because of the pressure that's piled on you and you have to learn the entire performance by heart. — Callan McAuliffe

Without writers, stories would not be written,
Without actors, stories could not be brought to life. — Angie-Marie Delsante

I'd love to do more theatre and acting. I attended a performing arts high school in London, and it would be great to be able to put all of that training to use again. — Derek Hough

I just enjoy acting, whatever area - theatre, film, television. — Michelle Dockery

The acting bug just seemed to stick with me. I loved going to theatre school in college and continued to train in film classes and had been auditioning for T.V. and movie roles since I was in my late teens. My career has been slow and steady, and I kind of like it that way. — Laura Mennell

I love theatre. It's far more satisfying than film. Sometimes there's a collective sigh from the audience, or it's so quiet you can hear a pin drop. I couldn't believe how easy acting was when there's an audience; after a few previews I almost couldn't do it without one. — Katie Leung

YOU HAVE TO ASK HARD QUESTIONS. — Tony Kushner

I never imagined I'd go into acting, but I always loved drama, and when I was 16, I discovered the Library Theatre up the road. So I plucked up courage and asked if I could watch rehearsals. It was like Heaven. — Lesley Nicol

I came to musical theatre from straight acting, and a lot of my friends have a real prejudice about musical theatre - one I probably shared. — Bertie Carvel

Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes. — Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history. — Liev Schreiber

The imagination is closer to the actor than real life-more agreeable, more comfortable. — Stella Adler

I was very interested in theatre, mostly in stage design. I did a little bit of acting. — Jim Henson

I took up drama and did so much extracurricular work, like the National Youth Theatre and Guildhall's Saturday school. Acting is where I felt most comfortable and how I wanted to express myself. — Douglas Booth

The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting - 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors. — Nicolas Roeg

Though I acted in hundreds of productions, appeared at the Guthrie Theatre and on Broadway in Amadeus, I discovered in my thirties that I didn't really like stage acting. The presence of the audience, the eight shows a week and the possibility of a long run were all unnatural to me. — Fred Melamed

You have to understand your best. Your best isn't Barrymore's best or Olivier's best or my best, but your own. Every person has his norm. And in that norm every person is a star. Olivier could stand on his head and still not be you. Only you can be you. What a privilege! Nobody can reach what you can if you do it. So do it. We need your best, your voice, your body. We don't need for you to imitate anybody, because that would be second best. And second best is no better than your worst. — Stella Adler

Pretty much at the age of 16, I realized acting wasn't going to be the vocation for me ... too political not enough creative control. But I loved the craft and my father wanted me to get a college degree. Seemed natural to study what I loved and Marymount Manhattan has a wonderful theatre program, I highly recommend it! A lot of what I learned there I apply to my comicbook writing and pacing. — Holly Golightly

I decided to have a regular childhood and not pursue [acting] until I left school, although I wrote plays, directed plays, and got involved in theatre at school. When I left school I decided that's that I was going to pursue and gave it a crack. — Karl Urban

I always thought that it was every performer's dream. That's the epitome of being an artist, being able to express song, dance and acting in a live theatre setting and really connecting with an audience on that level. — Deborah Cox

My style is an extension of acting and an outcome of some serious lessons I picked up learning when I did theatre in my early days. — Kapil Sharma

You will permit me to say, that a greater drama is now acting on this theatre than has heretofore been brought on the American tage, or any other in the world. We exhibit at present the novel and astonishing spectacle of a whole people deliberating calmly on what form of government will be most conducive to their happiness; and deciding with an unexpected degree of unanimity in favour of a system which they conceive calculated to answer the purpose. — George Washington

I went to a lot of theatre schools, got a lot of training, did a lot of repertory where you do a different play every night. I took a lot of voice, movement, and acting classes. — Jeffrey Combs

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 love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours. — Helen McCrory

I was born in the theatre. My father was a small time impresario on the West Coast and I was acting from the age of 7, but I started to write when I was 12 and by the time I was 14 I was making more money than I was acting. — Anita Loos

My father was a classical singer of baroque music, and my older sister was in musical theatre, and I thought about doing the same thing but then realised straight acting was for me. — Antonia Thomas

Love art in yourself, not yourself in art. — Konstantin Stanislavski

I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre. — Julie Walters

Acting is in everything but the words. — Stella Adler

I think theatre helped, only because it was acting experience. I got to work with a lot of directors. — James Denton

I didn't learn anything about acting until I joined the Group Theatre. They taught me an entirely new approach, an entirely new technique. — John Garfield

I started to respect older actors when I was young and then contemporary actors later on. Then I learned respect for comedy. When I was first doing theatre, I thought of it as just a means to become Sarah Bernhardt or someone like that. But acting with young people has been a great learning experience. — Anne Meara

I think, by and large, the level of acting is mediocre. When I go to the theatre, I get so angry. I don't go. — Uta Hagen

I did theatre when I was nine, I think. Nine and ten, and that was just the beginning of my whole involvement in acting, my whole interest. I don't really remember it that well. But it was really fun. I mean, it was exciting just to be on stage in front of an audience. It gives you a different kind of rush. — Amanda Seyfried

It's good to learn early that every show is a family
complete with dysfunctional relationships, tough love, and plenty of occasion for forgiveness ... — Kristin Chenoweth

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster. — Oscar Wilde

Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre - or theatricality - is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity. Man can see himself in the act of seeing, in the act of acting, in the act of feeling, the act of thinking. Feel himself feeling, think himself thinking. — Augusto Boal

Acting is a trick word invented in the festival of Dionysus, before Christ, in Greece at a fertility festival. That's where theatre came from: a fertility festival. No women were allowed. All the men played all the parts. — Gary Busey

Acting requires a creative and compassionate attitude. It must aim to lift life up to a higher level of meaning and not tear it down or demean it. The actor's search is a generous quest for that larger meaning. That's why acting is never to be done passively. — Stella Adler

I did a play called Throne of Straw when I was 11, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. It became really clear to me at that point that I enjoyed acting more than any other experience I was having. — Kiefer Sutherland

The theatre-acting, creating, interpreting - means total involvement, the totality of heart, mind and spirit. — Stella Adler

I used to spend a lot of time at football training, but that time was later spent in amateur acting classes and my local youth theatre, in plays at school and after-school clubs. That filled the void. — Sam Claflin

I was convinced that acting was for fools. I was on the stage when I was eight with my father, he was playing one of those Greek blind guys that sees things and warns people, whilst I was in a blue skirt. I think there were 5,000 people in the theatre, it was ridiculous. — Rutger Hauer

When you most succeed, you do so by seeming not to act at all. — Stella Adler

One half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator's sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him. — Edgar Allan Poe

Acting is a sport. On stage you must be ready to move like a tennis player on his toes. Your concentration must be keen, your reflexes sharp; your body and mind are in top gear, the chase is on. Acting is energy. In the theatre people pay to see energy. — Clive Swift

But then I got a job selling coffee at the York Theatre, and when I met theatre people, something clicked. I felt comfortable with them; I felt like myself. I decided to go to drama school based just on that feeling. I had never done any acting. — Janet McTeer

I've been acting my whole life. I have this huge imagination! I'm a dancer and my mom's a dance teacher, and I was always performing and entertaining people. I'd go to see live theatre or a movie, and I'd become the main character for a few days afterwards. I loved being somebody new for a temporary amount of time. — Natasha Calis

I had worked in this New York theatre company for my first eight or nine years out of college, acting and directing there, and I'd begun to write a little bit. — Clark Gregg

I would like to be going all over the kingdom ... and acting everywhere. There's nothing in the world equal to seeing the house rise at you, one sea of delightful faces, one hurrah of applause! — Charles Dickens

Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word. — Stella Adler

I did ballet and gymnastics, and then I started acting when I was eight - just doing amateur theater at a place called Oldham Theatre Workshop in my hometown. — Olivia Cooke

We don't want bores in the theatre. We don't want standardised acting, standard actors with standard-shaped legs. Acting needs everybody, cripples, dwarfs and people with noses so long. Give us something that is different. — Sybil Thorndike

I was a tomboy growing up and then fell into the world of theatre and musical theatre. A girlfriend introduced me to yoga in college and I was hooked. I didn't really know anything about it except that it was the highlight of my week. I ended up graduating from the University of Virginia and moving to Los Angeles where I could continue acting and do a yoga teacher training. I went from practicing once or twice a week to several hours everyday. I loved it. — Kathryn Budig

Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you. — Stella Adler

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. — Steve Buscemi

My background is in largely in theatre and acting. I grew up in a town with a well-respected Shakespeare Festival, and I fell in with some kids whose parents worked there. We staged all-kid versions of 'Hamlet', 'Cymbeline', a few others. All the while, I was making short films; monster movies, slapstick comedies, claymation. — Matt Ross

For my first acting job I played the role of Ensign Pulver in 'Mr. Roberts' at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. — Len Cariou

When I stand on stage, I get nervous, and because unexpected situations can occur, we need even more preparation. I must have confidence on top of that as well. The reason why I chose drama/theatre as my major is to act after learning all the theory first. You only live once, and I can only live as myself. I think I could learn a lot of things if I can live as others through acting. — Seohyun

I hope to be still acting when I'm 70 on TV, film and theatre. — Keeley Hawes

I never achieved my first goal in the National Actors Theatre, which is to have a permanent Acting Company. — Tony Randall

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man. — David Suchet

Acting must be scaled down for the screen. A drawing room is a lot smaller than a theatre auditorium. — Arthur Lowe

Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra. There's a lot to take in. — Stephen Sondheim

We were like two performers in a play, but we were divided, we were not acting with one another. We had to endure it alone, we had to put up this show, this miserable, sham performance for the sake of all these people I did not know and did not want to see again. — Daphne Du Maurier

Everyone has a different path. I knew no one in the acting industry growing up. I never did a play until college. I was not outspoken when I was younger and I hated being the center of attention. But I had a dream of being an actor. I went to NYU and studied theatre. I learned a craft. And began my career straight out of college. — Peter Facinelli

Acting in theatre or television or screen is only for the irrecoverably diseased, those so smitten with the need that there is no choice. — Michael Shurtleff

Totus mundus agit histrionem. (All the World's a Stage.)
[Motto of William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (f. 1599) and its acting company, The King's Men; taken from the first play to be performed on the new stage.] — William Shakespeare

I'm interested in the spirits of people. In the theatre, there's the acting part of acting - and I'm not saying that can't be great - and there's the essence. To explore that essence, you need a key, a look, a gesture, an insight that unlocks the person's soul. — Ralph Fiennes

Like the Bible, Stanislavsky's basic texts on acting can be quoted to any purpose. — Lee Strasberg

I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul. — Christopher Eccleston

Actor training should be broadly humanistic, involving the study not just of dramatic literature and theatre history, but of languages, literature, and history generally, and should be centered on acting in plays rather than just exercises, improvisations, monologues, or even scenes. — Richard Hornby

I've learnt that there's acting for film, acting for theatre, and acting for an audition. — Sarah Snook

When I began to direct, I began to understand and realise that everything that I'd learnt, both in music and dance and in the theatre, seemed to come together as a director, and I began to enjoy it. And slowly I let the acting go. — George Ogilvie

The money is better in films and television. But in terms of acting, theatre is more rewarding. — Christopher Eccleston

I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me. — Kate Bosworth

I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities. — Justin Bartha

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be. You can't be eight times a week without going stark staring mad. You've got to be in control. — Noel Coward