Top 1200 Acting From Actors Quotes & Sayings

When I audition, I understand what it takes and the insecurities that come with it. If I do anything, I put actors at ease. I used to tell directors who weren't actors, the best thing they could do was take an acting class for a couple of months. Just to understand.

I didn't even know what acting was at 11 years old. I truly believed that acting was hidden cameras everywhere. And I felt that these actors on the screen were somehow real people.

Well, acting is cheap; I knew all these actors who weren't in the Screen Actors Guild yet, and it happened that they were all just about thirty years old.

The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.

I went to an acting class for 3 years. But then I figured out that, since there were already 26,000 actors in SAG (Screen Actors Guild), I could make a better living as a stunt man.

I'd love to perform with other actors and act with actors, true actors. I would like to be in a movie and have full room for acting.

When I went to Bollywood and used to give actors instructions, many of them would tell me that I am acting out exactly like Mohanlal. I learnt from one of the best actors in the country and I am proud of that.

Acting is not in the blood. My parents weren't actors, but I imagine that if you've been brought up with actors, you have a lovely time at home and just want that to carry on.

They say that wrestlers are actors, and they couldn't be more wrong. The truth is wrestling and acting could not be more opposite. Wrestling is explosion, and acting is implosion.

I think I'm good with actors. I like directing actors. I also like to show up and just do an acting gig. Where I'm just a hired gun, I don't have to have an opinion on anything.I never got involved in all this stuff because I wanted to control stuff; I got involved in writing and producing because I wasn't getting interesting acting gigs. In a way I'm grateful that I didn't get interesting roles, because it made me pull my finger out and do some work.

Acting has always been something I've wanted to get into. I think the best models are actors; you're taking on a character. In that sense, I have been acting for a long time. It didn't seem like a crazy transition.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

There are problems in Canada. There is a certain inconsistency in the acting. I don't mean to sound chauvinistic, but we do have a larger supply of good actors in Hollywood. There are good actors in Canada, but not as wide a choice.

I've always thought that when anyone receives an award for acting they should always thank their fellow actors, because the only way you're going to deliver your best performance is when you have other good actors on the set supporting you and being very present for you even when the camera is not on them.

I've stopped showing actors what to actually do. I rather just talk to them about it. Then I usually play music. That's a great way to convey inner emotion, bring the power of style and acting together. That's really what it is, very good acting without talking.

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.

I went to theater school in France, and when I finished I thought I would never go back to acting again. I don't want to be acting in theater. It's not for me. I'm sick of all this theater world, all these actors, and all that.

Remember, acting is not a business of glamour. It is science, craft and an art. Read about acting; don't do it for the sake of fun. Actors such as Paresh Rawal and Naseeruddin Shah are great examples; they are surviving only because they have read well.

When I was younger, I did work with coach. I went to this place called Actors Space in the Valley. I was pretty young, and we were doing acting and improvisation. But no, no I didn't go to RADA, I didn't do that. But I do now work with an acting coach, primarily for the initial intellectual connection to the material.

Acting can truly take a toll on your nerves. I mean, we have to be larger than life. Worse, I've seen actors acting off the sets, too.

Before I got into acting, I was always interested in psychology, which I think is very common with a lot of actors because in a weird way, psychology and acting kind of seem interwoven.

I know some really great actors who are pretty judgmental people, pretty critical people. But they're great actors. When they're acting, that's the craft.

Acting has helped me understand people, not only because you are acting as a character, but also because you are watching other actors work. That really helps you identify in life when someone is acting, not being true.

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.

Period films to me are very often alienating to the audience. There's very often a formality. A staunchy quality to them that comes from the misenscene. It also comes from the performances of the actors, because they're acting Victorian which really means that they're just acting the way they've seen previous actors act Victorian.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn to me are the two best actors of all time. I'm just glad to have the pleasure to be in an era that they're acting while I'm acting. They're probably the best actors in my mind.

In Chicago it's really a case of the play's the thing - people are just so happy to be acting, you know? We were all actors - not like in New York or Los Angeles, where everyone says they are actors but they are actually waiting tables and hustling for spots in commercials.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Acting can truly take a toll on your nerves. I mean we have to be larger than life. Worse, I've seen actors acting off the sets too.

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.

I don't take acting classes - I'm quite an autodidact. I prefer to learn from other actors by watching various movies. Evaluate my acting, spot the flaws and fix them.

I was always under the impression that acting is an innate gift. One of the first things I heard them say at Koothu-P-Pattarai was that actors should realise the art of acting through their training.

I already love acting and I love actors, so being able to communicate with actors and to bring performances out of them, and to tell a story and aid them, is really exciting for me.

There wasn't really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn't know anything about acting.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

I think the best models are actors, you're taking on a character. In that sense, I have been acting for a long time. It didn't seem like a crazy transition. Acting is a bigger step into modelling in a way. Modelling is easier when you don't look like yourself. When you look like a different person, you feel different. Acting goes deeper into that, you have to move and talk like that character. I love it.

That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.

I think in the past, around the time that method acting became so prevalent, it used to be that American actors were thought to be the kind that would work more from the inside out, and that the English actors worked more from the outside in.

Actors don't hate acting. Most people don't hate acting! Whether you're a child mucking around with your friends or a grown up being paid to be on a set, pretending to be other people is fun.

What I learned about acting, from my experiences directing, is why so many producers and directors don't like actors. You go through all of this work securing a location, figuring out how to get electricity there, how to get trucks parked where they need to be, and where catering is going to come from. And if the actors don't come up with some magic, it actually didn't matter. That creates a lot of animosity towards the actors.

The more that I can work in different mediums, the more I can grow, and learn from different actors and different types of actors and directors and different styles of acting and build a tool box.

I love actors and I understand what has to happen within a scene. Any scene is an acting scene and actors never act alone, so there has to be an interchange. If it's a dialog scene, if it's a love scene, it doesn't matter because you need to establish a situation.

When the scene is over, a lot of people cut. The actors are acting. And they just stop acting. But I think that leaving people in that moment and seeing where else it can go and pushing them to take it further, a lot of special things can happen.

We have so much access to one another through technology and everything else, that we're very much used to people being real. When folks go on TV and they're basically acting - if they were good actors they'd be acting and paid for it for a living, but they're not good actors. When we see bad acting, it doesn't look like bad acting, it looks weird, and we are turned off by it. I'm not talking about anybody in particular, that's just politics right now. This generation, I feel like, has incredible bullshit detectors.

I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.

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 LA, 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.

I love actors, and I love good acting. I love what actors do when they're good, and I'm a big acting fan.

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.

There's a very fine line between underacting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and a dead pan are getting away wit it. I'd hate to see them on stage with a dog act.

I have done some formal acting training, because I sucked at acting when I first got to Los Angeles. I'm still one of the worst actors and auditions out there.

I think there are all sorts of ways of turning into an actor, and there are a vast variety of different actors. You know, you interview plenty of actors and you know they come at it from a different direction and acting means different things to a lot of people.

Actors like Pran Sahab, Jagdeep, Asrani established their identities by doing specialized roles but today acting is more general. Actors used to be image conscious then but now heroines are also playing negatives, it is a notable change.

I know actors who say acting is acting, but I love the live-ness of an audience. I love feeling the energy of a room and allowing them to sort of teach you how to do it better.

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.

I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.

I love talking about acting. I'm just such a fan of actors and filmmakers, and I try to choose roles where I get to talk to great actors about acting and learn.

I think it's all the same animal for me. There are actors who sing, and there are actors who direct, and I also improvise. That's one thing I do as part of my acting. I don't really separate the two.

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.

Acting opposite big heroes has worked well for my career. Hence, I have decided to do films that have top-notch actors as people take notice of my acting talent too.

Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act, we're all actors, we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience.