A Quote by Michael Shurtleff

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

Quote Topics

Acknowledge Acting Actor Actors Along Avoidance Compete Competing Competition Die First First-Rate Get Good Good Actor Healthy Help His Just Life Most Must Opposite Peacefulness Rate Refuse Seek Therefore Trouble Want Willingly

Quote Author

Michael Shurtleff
Actor
July 3, 1920 - January 28, 2007

Competition [in a scene] 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.

Michael Shurtleff

For people who seriously want to get into voiceover acting, clearly the most important thing is that you must be a good actor. That comes first. That's why celebrities get so much work in voiceovers - we've seen their work, we know they're good actors.

Andrea Romano

The actor has to have some degree of craft, along with the talent. No one tries to laugh except bad actors. No one tries to cry except bad actors. How a character hides his feelings tells us who he is. Most people don't know that, and most actors don't do that. Therefore, there are a lot of actors who put me to sleep, that are considered good actors, but they're predictable and boring. I know how the scene is going to end before it ends.

Martin Landau

In the real world of competition, the players want to compete and they want to compete at the very highest level.

Vince McMahon

I don't want to compete. I want to skate for the joy. I get so nervous in competition. I get always sick. I had pressures enough in my life from skating.

Katarina Witt

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet. In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.

James Dean

You must get rid of the thought of competition. You are to create, not to compete for what is already created.

Wallace D. Wattles

I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don't know what I'll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around ... anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset.

Larry Ellison

I find that it's a very odd thing to think of competition when you're talking about what I still think of as art. I don't think of competing with actors or filmmakers at all. You do compete, in a way, at the box office, but we're far enough apart when both films are coming out that I'm not concerned with that either.

George Clooney

Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great.

Fred Allen

Intensive mothering is the ultimate female Olympics: We are all in powerful competition with each other, in constant danger of being trumped by the mom down the street, or in the magazine we're reading. The competition isn't just over who's a good mother--it's over who's the best. We compete with each other; we compete with ourselves. The best mothers always put their kids' needs before their own, period.

Susan J. Douglas

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.

Michael Caine

I feel like my competition is everything else that's competing for people's attention, not just other print magazines, newspapers and cable. It's your kid's report card and the games you want to play, all the things that compete for people's time.

Nancy Gibbs

In today's time, when there is so much competition, they must not only focus on the characters of antagonists or protagonists, it is better for them to be good actors first.

Mukesh Rishi

I want challenges. I want to compete. I don't want it to always be easy. I don't want it to always just be a few of us girls. I want there to be competition.