Quotes & Sayings About Young Actors

Doing 'Young Adult' was really reassuring to me in a lot of ways. It confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about great actors. — Patton Oswalt

I worked, long ago, in New York City, in construction, like many young men of the Mohawk Nation. I found that whites were often like us, and I could not hate them one at a time. But they do not know the earth or love it. They do not speak from the heart, usually. They do not act from the heart. They are more like the actors on the movie screen. They play roles. And their leaders are not like our leaders. They are not chosen for virtue, but for their skill at playing roles. Whites have told me this, in plain words. They do not trust their leaders, and yet they follow them. When we do not trust a leader, he is finished. Then, also, the leaders of the whites have too much power. It is bad for a man to be obeyed too often. But the worst thing is what I have said about the heart. Their leaders have lost it and they have lost mercy. They speak from somewhere else. They act from somewhere else. But from where? Like you, I do not know. It is, I think, a kind of insanity. — Robert Anton Wilson

I go to the gym a lot, and I see these guys, these young actors or models there, really punishing themselves - I mean, just killing themselves. And then I'll see one of them on a billboard, with the artfully messy hair, looking as though it's just natural and easy to have a body like that. — Bronson Pinchot

I grew up with it. As a young actor, I was always aware of the brilliant work of Shakespeare. We studied Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth in school. As a young actor, you're always mystified and intrigued by such brilliant work. To actually have the chance to be involved in this production was a wonderful thing for me. — Ed Westwick

In a June 25, 2010, Washington Post article, the CIA acknowledged officially
discussing the creation of a video of a fake Saddam Hussein having sex with a
teenage boy in order to discredit him in the eyes of the Iraqi people. Evidently,
the Agency did create a video of a fake Osama Bin Laden drinking liquor
around a campfire with his cronies, bragging about their conquests of young
boys. The article quoted an anonymous former CIA officer "chuckling" at the
memory, and declaring that the actors used in the video were drawn from
"some of us darker-skinned employees." These ridiculous clandestine ideas
brought to mind the childish efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro forty years
earlier. — Donald Jeffries

Every day, every scene, you were like, "My god. I'm doing a scene with Brian Cox today and then I'm onto a scene with Stephen Rea." For us young actors, I think we were all very, very star-struck and impressed by the caliber of everyone who came out. — James Norton

Nowadays, kids ... young actors ... they go straight to L.A. before they've even done anything. — Peter Capaldi

It is unfortunate that the poor judgment shown by a small group of young actors has tarnished the reputation of every child who has ever appeared before a camera. — Fred Savage

Movie actors disappear - any young person wouldn't know Cary Grant. They're going to disappear. Fifty years ago, you thought film was here to stay. But nothing is here to stay, actually - except perhaps paintings and drawings. — David Hockney

I love young adult fantasies. While I say that, I have not seen all of the Twilight and Harry Potter movies. But I've read all of the books, and I love them. I love them because I enjoy being transported to a different world and having my imagination challenged. That's a huge part of what we do as actors. We have to imagine ourselves in a different world. And when you are in a young adult fantasy, it challenges you in the best way. — Viola Davis

I am pretty sure that all young human beings have, at one time or another in their growing-up, been actors. They have used their imaginations to carry them away from painful or confusing situations ... have imagined themselves to be more powerful or beautiful or brave or loving than they are. — Tyne Daly

I feel it's so hard for young actors; It's a different world that they're coming up in; there's so much money to be made off of their personal lives, and people are bound and determined to make that money. — Garrison Keillor

I never had a problem with my face on screen. I thought it is what it is, and I was turned off by actors and actresses that tried to keep themselves young. — Robert Redford

One thing I've noticed is that I can tell when a young actor or a young actress is going to become a huge star. Everybody else will say, "Oh come on, Michelle Pfeiffer, are you kidding?" and I'm pretty much always right about that. — David Carradine

Some kids are fine, but often I don't like what I see in child actors. My kids are young and they are already showing an interest, so I have to try to discourage them, squash that in them. — John Leguizamo

Oh yeah, I'm the president of the lucky club. There are so many talented people who don't work. And the crop of young actors I'm surrounded by is incredible. When you have people like that around you it amps you up a little bit. Also, Emile Hirsch and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, or guys like Ryan Gosling. It's a really good crowd and I feel I'm coming up at a good time. But equally, there's a lot of good young actors who don't get to work who are more talented than I. I'm just lucky. — Shia Labeouf

I feel bad for young actors who become huge stars too quickly, because you haven't had a chance to practice your craft a lot. — Topher Grace

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

I trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute at Tisch, which is a huge foundation for young actors. They teach you their methods and give you the sense that acting is much more tangible than most people think. I think there's a mysticism of what acting is, in the fact that it's this ungraspable, spur-of-the-moment thing that nobody can understand. — Roberto Aguire

"I've never see you do something like this before and I'd love to see you try." For a young actor, that's about the most exciting thing that anyone can say to you. — Dan Stevens

What impresses me is the young actors with terrific talent arriving on the scene. They'd have blown us all away in the old days. Guys like Brad Pitt. — Robert Wagner

Most young actors, that's all they're trying to do: Get better at acting and be able to keep doing it. And that doesn't work out for most people. — Ben Mendelsohn

From a very young age, I wanted to get up on stage whenever I went to the theatre - the actors just seemed to be having so much fun. One of my worries about theatre, in fact, is that the actors are quite often having more fun than the audience. — Olivia Williams

I rarely meet other young actors. — Mia Wasikowska

I remember all the kids picking their chosen career paths and I was thinking, If I'm an actor I can be an astronaut and a policeman and a firefighter. At the time I was so young that I actually thought actors were all of those things. — Chris Lowell

I always tell other young actors to go to school, or at least watch movies to learn as much as you can. — Rutina Wesley

One of the things that I cannot fathom is young actors who will not audition and won't read. — Daniel Radcliffe

I hope to see more programming, more shows, more actors of mixed ethnicity, more young kids of mixed ethnicity choosing to be in the entertainment industry. — Charles Michael Davis

British actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from L.A., are coming at it, that I think it's interesting for them to find these English actors who maybe approach acting from a different place. — Jim Sturgess

My career was full of struggles and dreams, disappointments and peaks and valleys. But there was no Twitter, no Facebook or TMZ. Young actors could make mistakes and not become the focus of tabloids. — Ricky Schroder

The thing about film-making is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own cheques, be responsible. — Tom Cruise

'Ouija' has a steady directorial hand, some attractive young actors who taking the silliness seriously, and few admirable genre elements. It renounces the faux-found-footage ShakyCam style, instead employing a traditionally smooth visual style. — Richard Corliss

I want to keep working. I want to step away from young adult fiction. I want to do theater periodically - Farragut North reminded me how great it is. I started out in theater. I trained in theater and then I kind of fell into film and TV. I want to work with interesting artists, talented actors, talented directors, and talented scripts. Not necessarily leading roles. — Max Irons

I try to do the same thing when I'm with young actors who are new and unsure. I try to do the same thing for them that I saw Laurence [Fishburne] and Angela [Dasset]do for all of us on Boyz n the Hood. — Nia Long

Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay. — Ian McKellen

We work so hard as young artists to further our careers or improve our technique, sometimes it gets so easy to not actually go and see things like a play or a film. I think the best way to get better is to see other actors do what they do well. — Juliet Rylance

Girls "going wild" aren't damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. The lie of virginity - the idea that such a thing even exists - is ensuring that young women's perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people , not on whether or not they're sexually active ... so while young women are subject to overt sexual messages everyday, they're simultaneously being taught - by the people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less - that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain "pure". — Jessica Valenti

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors. — Mike Leigh

Casting young people is always so difficult, and they got it so right in 'Game of Thrones.' All the young actors are amazingly talented and so professional. — Joe Dempsie

I couldn't remember ever having seen a young man with such power, so many facets of expression, so much sheer invention as an actor. — Hedda Hopper

A lot of young actors will do a scene and then run off and look at themselves. I don't believe in that at all. — Charlotte Rampling

I would later discover it was a bad idea to gather more than two of these people in an enclosed area for any length of time. The stage was not only a physical place but also a state of mind, and the word audience was defined as anyone forced to suffer your company. We young actors were a string of lightbulbs left burning 24 hours a day, exhausting ourselves and others with our self-proclaimed brilliance. — David Sedaris

I haven't had a lot of experience with glamour. I've never had to mask myself, as many now not-so-young actresses have had to do. Female actors in that regard have a different lot in life than male actors. — Melissa Leo

Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut. — Campbell Scott

I tell young actors to do anything that will sustain them. — Vic Tayback

I've been working as an actress since I was very young, and I know a lot of people who are actors who don't have to deal with having a persona ... You know, if you look up the word persona, it isn't even real. The whole meaning of the word is that it's made up, and it's like I didn't even get to make up my own. It can be annoying. — Kristen Stewart

When I was a young actor, I just didn't understand how to function in this business as an artist. It is a business, it's called the film business for a reason, there's money involved. But on the flip side, nowadays I do not let the business side of it rule either. It's a balance. — James Franco

I can tell you that from the director's chair, young actors love to be challenged, to be given killer lines that take time to wrap their mind around. — Mark Waters

I never wanted to be an actress, really. I sort of caught the bug fairly late. So many people are so intrigued with the glamour and celebrity of acting, and a lot of actors start acting when they are 9 or 10 years old - so young. I started when I was about 24. — Bitsie Tulloch

A lot of young actors have the idea that, "I've got to do this right. There's a right way to do this." But there's no right or wrong. There's only good and bad. And "bad" usually happens when you're trying too hard to do it right. There's a very broad spectrum of things that can inhibit you. The most important thing for actors - and not just actors, but everybody - is to feel loose enough to create what you want to create, and be free to try anything. To have choices. — Robert De Niro

When you're younger you've got a lot of ideas and you're probably more insecure. I work with young actors now and I see their insecurities, and I make them laugh because I know exactly what they're going through. When you get older you think, it's only a movie after all, it's not brain surgery. — Anthony Hopkins

As a kid, as a young actor, I really wanted to pop. I wanted to create something different. I wanted to be Sean Penn, but I didn't have all the words to be Sean Penn. But I was trying to do something different in every role. — Matthew Lillard

I pick out young people and teach them in less time than it would take me to alter the methods of people from the boards, and I get actors who look the parts they have to fill. — D.W. Griffith

I really appreciate an actor who has paid their dues and who has learned hard knocks and has been rewarded in the end. I don't understand young actors who get off the turnip truck and land in Hollywood and get a great job. They do not realize how fortunate they are. — Enrico Colantoni

Young girls of 13 or 12 are great actors. — Dario Argento

My mom always wanted me to be an actor. And I started going to theater and going on auditions young. I only realized about five years ago that I actually didn't want to be an actor. — Angelina Jolie

There are a lot of great young actors coming out of England who have maybe not gone to drama school, but I wish I had. — Ed Speleers

This is what people were looking at all day? How embarrassing! I looked like Quasimodo! My guests were exceptional actors. — Cameo Renae

The movie is so fun. I've done period pieces before but nothing with this twist. And the movie is just full of such wonderful people, such young actors - people like Matt Smith that I've been friends with for a while. — Douglas Booth

I guess I'm the perfect young lead actress. I'm not Chloe Sevigny - I'm not really a character actress. Some actors have "character" faces. — Berenice Bejo

Don't ever underestimate the power of mentoring someone, or helping some young actor, doing a favor for them, or introducing- everyone needs somebody to help them along when they're first starting out. — Allison Janney

People use the Method as a shield; it shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, 'I'm Method, I'm gonna go live in the house, you know, I totally get it, I've done it, I've been there', but one thing I know is it kills spontaneity. — Mark Ruffalo

If I or any other black can deliver at the box office, I'll get a lot of work. Too many young actors, regardless of their color, try to play an attitude on camera and fail to remember their job is to fit into an entertainment. — Mario Van Peebles

In 'The Purity Myth,' I not only discuss what the purity myth is and reveal its consequences for women, but also outline a new way for us to think about young women as moral actors, one that doesn't include their bodies. — Jessica Valenti

I've always been quite mature because of the way my parents brought me up. They were very good at talking to me like a person rather than a baby, and I was around so many actors and directors from such a young age because my dad is an actor. I was more comfortable with adults rather than actually being an adult child. — Saoirse Ronan

There are so many talented young actors in the industry. I'm just happy to have a job! — Colton Haynes

Grigoryevich...Not that he had any real talent himself - but what a lot of deaths of talented people he had witnessed. Young physicists and historians, specialists in ancient languages, philosophers, musicians, young Russian Swifts and Erasmuses - how many of them he had seen put on their "wooden jackets." Prerevolutionary literature had often lamented the fate of serf actors, musicians, and painters. But who was there today to write about the young men and women who had never had the chance to write their books and paint their paintings? The Russian earth is indeed fertile and generous. She gives birth to her own Platos, to her own quick-witted Newtons - but how casually and terribly she devours these children of hers. — Vasily Grossman

Too many young actors are strutting about and doing films without having developed some of the depth you need to bring off certain kinds of roles. I think that's the problem with the system, where a lot of younger actors who haven't had a chance to develop suddenly become stars. — Christopher Walken

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

Once, and only once, I walked on stage and my mind went utterly blank! I had no idea why I was there! My fellow actors had to rescue me. I was very young and new to the business, so I'm glad it didn't give me stage fright for the rest of my life! — Laura Donnelly

'Skins' had been a brilliant breeding ground for young actors, young directors and young writers. It was a safe environment to experiment; it tried new things, and it was an amazing time and amazing to be part of it. — Joe Dempsie

The heat around young actors burns out. Natural ability and magnetism only get you so far. The rest is hard work. — Ben Foster

You know, one thing I learned about actors and actresses - I mean the big stars. They can be the most ignorant people if they get caught up in it very young. Some of them are damn near illiterate. And emotionally they're like people who have grown up in the penal system. I mean, they cannot control their emotions at all. — Anne Rampling

There's something really special for a young person to sit in an audience and discover somebody, and it's rare to do because so much of a movie's economics are based on pre-existing actors or actresses. — Craig Brewer

I don't want to be one of those young actors who is around for a couple of years and melts off the scene. — Tuppence Middleton

Why do you think so many actors are only half-developed people? It's very easy when you're a young actor to have these intense, explosive friendships for short periods of time, because you can control what's shown of you. Then you go on to your next job and reinvent yourself again. I think it's important to find something constant. — Damian Lewis

Every film by Will Smith, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Don Cheadle will have great acting and carry good messages in the film. The films starring those actors are the films I tell young people to watch for good acting and to view for quality movies. — Brian J. White

Young actors are pretty fantastic. I can't even imagine doing stuff like that when I was a kid. — Donal Logue

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

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well, but is intensely rewarding. Particularly the chance to help draw out the best in young actors. — Angelina Jolie

The young actors coming out of the Universities are well trained. — Tony Randall

The advice that I usually give to young actors is that if you can create a character for the stage and keep that character fresh for at least 6 months that means you're doing the show eight times a week. — Joe Morton

I figured most of the best actors around 20 years old would all be at drama school, where they're tied up and contractually can't work, so I saw there must be a gap in the market for a young actor like me. — Matt Milne

Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous. — Tom Hiddleston

When I was coming up in the '80s television, if you were on television that meant either you were a young actor just coming up like I was, or you were an older actor whose career was over and you had to go on television. — Billy Bob Thornton

I've had lots of good career advice over the years. I've learned that you must always arrive knowing your lines, you must hit your marks, you must be punctual and cheerful and kind. I'm always irritated with young people who misbehave and young actors who are temperamental. I don't think there's any need for it. — Jacki Weaver

Most actors nowadays are models turned actors. That's why a lot of young actors are terrible. You have to learn how to act. It is not something that you can just do. — Ansel Elgort

It's great to have people to bounce off and I love working with people my age. I think young actors have such energy about them and such a passion and a drive to do their best and prove themselves constantly, and to work with that is really fun and interesting. — Kaya Scodelario

If you want to be a theater actor, where do you live now? Young actors struggle on a Broadway salary. A lot of them live in shoe boxes; some of them are literally three to a shoebox. New York has gotten prohibitively expensive. — Stephen Spinella

Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away. — Andy Serkis

All actors do that. Should do that and do that. For the most part. I say all actors. I'm exaggerating, but you know who does and who doesn't. Vince is a wonderful young actor who knows his work and did a beautiful job on this film. — Harvey Keitel

When I was really young, I was reluctant to be perceived as bossy, and I thought that working with an ensemble was about generating a consensus all the time. Later on, I realized that it's actually generous to know what you want and to tell people what you want - actors, crew, everyone. — Liza Johnson

I think it's even harder because I think as always, Hollywood is sort of glamour central for the world, and the entire world looks to it for not only entertainment, but the whole idea of the youth factor and youth being sold to our culture via young actors and actresses. — Anthony Michael Hall

When we were young people, all we ever wanted was to be good working actors. We didn't think of fame or money because, honestly, money was never part of the dream. — Sarah Jessica Parker

The actors nowadays, both young men and young ladies, don't always wear their period clothes as well as they might. They tend to stomp around a bit in them. — Julie Harris

Gene Siskel used to describe old-age makeup as making young actors look like turtles. — Roger Ebert

I have only really gotten by with playing versions of myself as most young actors do. — Amanda Seyfried

On many young actors that don't give their parents proper credit: I'm still waiting for some actor to win, say, an Oscar ... and deliver the following acceptance speech: I would like to thank my parents, first of all, for letting me live. — Bill Cosby

The number one reason for the death of young actors' careers is people get so used to seeing them playing that one character that they can't accept them as anyone else. — Denzel Whitaker

I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me. — John Hughes