Top 1200 Actors And Acting Quotes & Sayings - Page 17

I get bored at the theatre a lot because I notice that there's not always a connection between the actors. They may be technically proficient, but they're not surprising each other. I'm thrilled by actors who make choices that are surprising.

Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers. I wanted to watch what my actors were doing and how they were telling the story.

The acting thing is so beyond my control. Acting isn't mine. You're like a tiny piece in this big, corporate mechanism that needs chemistry and divine intervention.

A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.

The foundation for film acting is stage acting.

Actually ninety-nine percent of my acting has nothing to do sci-fi or fantasy, I consider it a good part of my acting, and enjoy the roles I play.

I don't rehearse with my actors... the first rehearsal is the first time we turn the camera on... Sydney Pollack never rehearsed his actors, and I found out that's allowed... so you film reactions; you don't create them.

I've become really aware since putting out music that some people can't get past the acting thing. But acting was never what I meant to do.

Acting is somewhat mysteriously taught. There are so many different methods and systems and processes for teaching acting because it will always be an elusive art-form.

I live in New York and I love it, because it doesn't make me feel like my life is always just about acting and that world of acting. I don't have expectations.

In general, a film's delay is disheartening for actors, but it's harder on the director and the producer who have been on the project for longer than anyone else. While actors move on to other projects, the film's makers don't.

I was a law student when I started acting in plays. I was a real estate lawyer but I continued acting on stage because that is what gave me a lot of happiness.

Actors want to work with you but they want you to do their thing. Actors, whom I love with a blind partiality, sometimes they want to be soloists in the symphony, not a part of the orchestra.

I would like to be able to be both a film actor and a stage actor - to be an American actor in the style of a lot the English actors who do films. They are these wonderful actors who can do everything.

When I'm not acting, I do like to take a year off at a time, at least if I can, just in order to keep acting exciting - otherwise I get bored very quickly.

My approach to acting is the 'let's pretend' school of acting.

I was applying to the art school, but there was a checklist that said I had to do either production design or stage management or acting. I thought, "I don't want to be an actor, but I know production and stage management take acting classes" - this is literally my internal monologue. I was like, "Designers don't have to take acting classes. Cool. I'll check that box".

Anytime I get an acting role, I find a way to learn about something new, or heal a part of my life that I didn't know was hurting. I think anybody could benefit from taking acting classes. You don't necessarily have to want to be an actor or pursue the acting business. But just taking an acting class, you're going to learn so much about life and what it's like to walk in somebody else's shoes. It helps you stop judging people. It does something to you where you become empathetic to people's plights and journeys, and it makes you a little more understanding and caring.

There's lots of incredible roles out there that I'd love to tackle, but there's a select group of actors I find myself gravitating towards, like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis - real transformational actors.

Personally, the first year when I started making enough money just from acting - by that, I mean not doing anything else but acting - was around 2003.

The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.

There are so many people who make their debut every day in B-Town, and there is no competition among a particular section of actors. Everybody is talented, and all actors are trying to make their mark in the industry. No one is competing with another person.

The reason I like doing these acting projects is because no matter how much acting I do, I'll always have music in my life. I love having both.

That's what I love about acting. There's never a set role. You can be a firefighter, you can be a baseball player, you can be whatever you want in the acting world. I think I've found my calling.

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them.

Acting takes inspiration from all the allied fields - be it diction, dancing, reading, narrating, I try to imbibe all those things to perfect my acting skills.

Every film requires a different process. You learn about these particular actors and the particular chemistry between these actors. Recognizing when you don't need to shoot a scene because it's going to be cut anyway.

If I wasn't acting, I would be trying to break into acting.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic. The words for me are secondary, but the chemistry between the actors is most important. However, you have to go by the script because it's related to production, otherwise you will not finish your project.

A lot of critics sometimes get into analyzing the way actors direct versus non-actors directing. And they really always miss it. It's one of those things where, by not being practitioners, they just came up with something that made sense to them.

I always hated acting but I kept on acting.

A lot of British actors will look at America as a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.

I do very little on-camera acting, so within a phrase as a voice actor you have to know how to convey when someone is 95 years old or 19 years old. . . When I was the lead singer of the California Raisins commercials there was a traditional actor there as well and he would do all these body movements without saying anything because he was "acting." And the only acting the microphone picked up on was silence.

I think all the actors I've worked with knew that I was an actor. Like, I get into the dirt with my actors and we figure out the rhythm of the scene and how it needs to sound and what the blocking is, the way you would with another actor.

I don't think it's a prize when actors and directors or writers and actors work together more than once. You have a trust and a shorthand and a lot of times you even reach the point, where in the process, you don't even have to talk.

Actors have given up their clout. Now decision making is in the hands of lighting men, designers, bankers, special-effects people. We need to cut that out and just go with the most able trained actors in the business.

I love working with the same actors repeatedly. That happens a lot. It's kind of inevitable, especially if you work with the same writers and directors and you start to form a company of actors. You gravitate towards each other.

I don't have a great instrument. I don't have the kind of ungodly control over my voice and body that great actors have. And I've worked with enough great actors to know that I'm not one.

I've never worked with an acting coach, but my parents had acting classes and I grew up around them my whole life just because I didn't have a babysitter.

There are 100,000 actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Only 2,000 of them make more than $75,000 a year.

With acting, it's all about internalizing the character for me and doing all the preparation you can. So the day you first step into your wardrobe, you can walk like the person. That's really the moment where the light bulb goes off. You're nervous; any actor will tell you that. Robert De Niro will probably tell you the same thing. He may not want to share that with you, but he probably goes through it. That's why actors are so neurotic.

Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.

I've always been a history buff. It was one of the few subjects at school that really, really caught me. I think you'll find a lot of actors will be interested in history because it sparks your imagination so much. When you enter a period of history, your imagination just goes wild in creating the world, which is really what acting is.

For me, acting is a long-term thing. I'm not in a hurry to make it. I have no desire to explode onto the film industry. I still want to be acting when I'm 60.

I've always had an itch for acting and a passion for acting, but never really got to dabble into it too much, and now I can say I'm officially an acrtress.

Acting is ephemeral. You can't hang it on a wall. You can't throw it off. And you can't bring it out of a closet. It's there one night and it's gone the next, at least with stage acting anyhow.

A lot of actors seem to dislike typecasting these days. The funny thing is, that's a fairly recent development. It used to be that actors wanted to be typecast so audiences could remember them and identify with them.

Television is a completely different industry now. It's just extraordinary. It's so wonderful, because there's more interesting product. It attracts the best writers and directors. And one thing that's really interesting about it is that it used to be, if you were on a big network show, like it or not, you were a household face and name. And believe it or not, not all actors like that. That's not their goal. They just like being actors. And there are so many actors that are on hit shows that I have never seen, I've never heard.

That's the thing about film acting and television acting. You just release yourself and do what is true for the moment, and ignore everybody and everything and all the technical razzmatazz that goes on.

In Bollywood, we are told exactly what to do and how to do it and not to counter things by saying there's a better way. We make our actors feel important by paying them more. But the real deal is when you let the actors take some decisions on the sets.

I love acting. I do it as a hobby. If I was able to have that as a career... Hopefully the fashion thing is a stepping-stone. I was so worried when I started modeling that it would hinder my chances of acting.

Chemistry's a weird thing. You can see actors who are friends in real life but have no screen chemistry. Then there are actors who don't get on but have great chemistry.

Even on my films, I always collaborate with the actors. That's a given. I think you need that. You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do, to get the most out of everyone's potential.

Writers and painters have a medium that can foster self-effacements. Actors haven't. An actor can't hide himself behind paper or canvas. If you're not there your art's not there. That's why we actors are often such self-centered objects.

Often actors ask me if I think they should go on trying to be an actor. I have the same answer for everyone who asks: If you have a choice and could reasonably be happy doing something else, by all means go at once and do something else. Acting or writing or directing in the theatre or television or screen is only for the irrecoverably diseased, those who are so smitten with the need that there is no choice.

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.

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

Well if I had my choice I would not - I wouldn't mind working with Alec Baldwin, but the mother role - I'm kidding. It's terrific. I'll tell you what happened with Alec Baldwin and myself. This is a couple acting together just this side of heaven. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with in whole life. And I - I'm not overdoing it. I just think he's about the best around today. So I got lucky.

People like Bill Murray are incredible at what they do and are definitely my flavour. Although Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais are also incredible actors. In their comedy, they make these stupid people feel so real. These guys are really setting the bar very high, and I learn as much from them about acting as I do about comedy.

I think that's what I really love about acting; all of the social and moral codes of society can be thrown away when you're acting, and it's just you being totally committed to the role.