Quotes and Sayings about Acting
"It was always part of the plan to move into acting."
- Aaliyah
(Related: Acting)
"Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach."
- Aaliyah
(Related: Time, Acting, Coach)
"Acting is the work of two people-it's only possible when you have the complicity, the help, even the manipulation of a director."
- Victoria Abril
(Related: Work, People, Acting, Help, Manipulation)
"What I enjoy most is travelling to different places and meeting new people. For me, it's all about life experiences, and I'm very grateful that acting allows me so many interesting and fulfilling ones."
- Jensen Ackles
(Related: Life, People, Acting, Meeting)
"I didn't get into acting to have a moment, I got into it because of people who've inspired me, like Judi Dench, Holly Hunter, and Jodie Foster."
- Amy Adams
(Related: People, Acting, Holly)
"The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings."
- Stella Adler
(Related: Experience, Life, Feelings, Acting, Actor, Choices)
"This art of acting is a process I love very much. It's an unbelievably fulfilling experience for me and I look forward to building upon my art in the years to come."
- Greg Akcelrod
(Related: Art, Experience, Love, Acting, Building, Years)
"I don't think I'm proud of anything in acting."
- Eddie Albert
(Related: Acting)
"I always say if you've seen good acting on television, those actors are really good. Because there's just not enough time. You don't have any preparation."
- Sasha Alexander
(Related: Time, Acting, Actors, Preparation, Television)
"I actually wanted to be an exotic dancer, but that didn't work out so I thought I'd take on acting."
- Sasha Alexander
(Related: Work, Thought, Acting)
"When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios."
- Sasha Alexander
(Related: Money, Acting, College, Living, Writing)
"You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?"
- Debbie Allen
(Related: First, Talking)
"Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful even if it was just vicariously."
- Joan Allen
(Related: Opportunity, Acting)
"Idleness does drive me crazy, but I'd rather read or write than do anything just to work. A kind of respect has been instilled in me for acting: I love it too much to ever have a bad relationship with it."
- Karen Allen
(Related: Love, Work, Idleness, Respect)
"I never did go back to acting class. I was too busy working."
- Kirstie Alley
(Related: Acting, Class)
"It came as a great shock to me when I heard that England and Soviet Russia had become allies. So much so that I thought that the people responsible in London were acting in a manner that no longer coincided with British imperial interests."
- John Amery
(Related: Thought, People, Acting, England, London, Russia)
"Look up the definition of rejection in the dictionary, get really comfortable with it, and then maybe you can go into acting."
- Loni Anderson
(Related: Acting, Rejection)
"I talk about acting to students making the transition from high school to UCLA. Kids going into this profession really need to know the reality of it."
- Loni Anderson
(Related: Acting, Kids, Profession, Reality, School, Students, Talk)
"I started acting when I was 10, doing musical theater. I was a brunette at that time. I was always cast in all the exotic parts."
- Loni Anderson
(Related: Time, Acting, Theater)
"I never went to school. I never went to acting school because I was so scared."
- Ursula Andress
(Related: Acting, School)
"The wonderful thing about acting is you move along with your decade. The older you get, the more interesting the parts you get to play and you bring more of your personal experience to the part."
- Francesca Annis
(Related: Experience, Acting, Play)
"I do find acting cathartic."
- Francesca Annis
(Related: Acting)
"Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way."
- Aristotle
(Related: Men, Quality, Acting)
"When I'm not involved in an acting job I try to run 10 miles a day."
- Joan Van Ark
(Related: Acting, Day, Job)
"Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody."
- Jane Asher
(Related: Acting, Being, End, Silly)
"Acting has been very useful to me."
- Jane Asher
(Related: Acting)
"The only thing I like about being an actress is acting."
- Elizabeth Ashley
(Related: Acting, Being)
"We don't have sources who are dissidents on other sources. Should they come forward, that would be a tricky situation for us. But we're presumably acting in such a way that people feel morally compelled to continue our mission, not to screw it up."
- Julian Assange
(Related: People, Acting, Mission)
"My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting."
- Armand Assante
(Related: Dream, Acting, Actor)
"Acting is a total physical, emotional sensation."
- Armand Assante
(Related: Acting)
"It's a blessing and a curse. But it's not always the best situation to be in. As a profession, I don't recommend acting at all."
- Armand Assante
(Related: Acting, Profession)
"Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it."
- Mary Astell
(Related: Men, Women, Wisdom, Acting, Folly, Malice, Wit)
"I'm like the universe; either expanding or contracting at any given moment. The most that I had put on was about 35, 36 pounds, and I've taken all of that off."
- Sean Astin
(Related: Contracting, Universe)
"I don't get acting jobs because of my looks."
- W. H. Auden
(Related: Acting, Jobs)
"My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Experience, Thoughts, Vision, Light, Mind)
"My personal advice is to go to school first and get a liberal arts education, and then if you want to pursue acting, go to graduate school."
- Jillian Bach
(Related: Education, Acting, Advice, First, Liberal, School, Want)
"I don't want to stop acting, but acting in some ways is a young man's game."
- Kevin Bacon
(Related: Acting, Man, Want)
"I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to be a good guy, a bad guy, a victim, an abuser. There are all kinds of people in the world, and playing them is what acting is all about."
- Kevin Bacon
(Related: Work, People, Acting, Actor, World)
"Some people have therapy, some people are alcoholics or they're in AA. Some people jump out of planes on weekends or find ways to release this kind of thing. And for me, it's acting. I find acting very therapeutic for whatever it is."
- Kevin Bacon
(Related: People, Acting, Therapy)
"I think some people in their 20s really get it, that acting is about creativity and the work. They get their maturity from their work."
- Jane Badler
(Related: Work, People, Creativity, Acting, Maturity)
"I think if you're half-hearted you shouldn't go into acting."
- Jane Badler
(Related: Acting)
"I feel lucky. I think acting can help to keep you young. It does make you feel there's meaning in your life."
- Jane Badler
(Related: Life, Acting, Help, Meaning)
"I went into show business because I love to work with people, and what I enjoy most about acting is rehearsing and getting to know people and their talents, forming relationships. Working in this business, barriers drop and you get into people real quickly."
- Scott Bakula
(Related: Business, Love, Work, People, Acting, Relationships)
"I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game."
- Bob Balaban
(Related: Acting)
"I feel I'm two people: I have my interest in acting and I have a lot of other political interests I'd like to pursue."
- Alec Baldwin
(Related: Acting, Interest)
"Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set."
- Christian Bale
(Related: People, Acting, Environment, Nothing)
"It's got to do with putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing how far you can come to truly understand them. I like the empathy that comes from acting."
- Christian Bale
(Related: People, Acting, Empathy)
"There are movies that require fantasy and slightly more fantastical acting. Lines that are good for certain movies, in real life circumstances, would be absolutely unbelievable things to really say, and you would look at these people like they're freaks for conversing that way. But somehow for certain styles of movies, it works, and it seems fine."
- Christian Bale
(Related: Life, Movies, People, Acting, Circumstances, Fantasy)
"Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have."
- Steve Ballmer
(Related: People, Ideas, Financial, Performance, Innovation, Listening, Results, Years)
"All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders."
- Steve Ballmer
(Related: People, Acting, Leaders, Right)
"Acting is a form of confusion."
- Tallulah Bankhead
(Related: Acting, Confusion)
"Acting is a form of confession."
- Tallulah Bankhead
(Related: Acting, Confession)
"People always ask me if I'm going to stop modeling because I have started an acting career. I hope to continue to model for years to come."
- Tyra Banks
(Related: People, Hope, Acting, Career, Years)
"I was involved in music, acting, and some running, but my firm wish was to become a doctor. That was the formative age when I had decided on the pattern of my career."
- Roger Bannister
(Related: Age, Music, Acting, Career, Running)
"Acting is like a high wire act. Your margin for error is very slim."
- Christine Baranski
(Related: Act, Acting, Error)
"I was just a cheap little starlet hardly acting at all in a very mediocre film."
- Brigitte Bardot
(Related: Acting, Film)
"Vadim changed my mind about acting. Vadim was the only man who was certain I had something special to offer."
- Brigitte Bardot
(Related: Acting, Man, Mind)
"Acting is a matter of giving away secrets."
- Ellen Barkin
(Related: Acting, Giving, Secrets)
"In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principal."
- Jacques Barzun
(Related: Business)
"I think actors are privileged. Acting feeds you."
- Alan Bates
(Related: Acting, Actors)
"Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profit others and ourselves."
- Anne Baxter
(Related: Home, Devil, Duty, Idleness, Labor, Profit, Sin, Temptation)
"My family thought the fascination with acting was just another fad."
- Sean Bean
(Related: Family, Thought, Acting)
"Marriage requires a special talent, like acting. Monogamy requires genius."
- Warren Beatty
(Related: Marriage, Talent, Genius, Acting)
"I can relax in L.A. I think I'm the only person in that town who doesn't want to act. I was an OK singer. I was an OK dancer. But acting? Never could do it."
- Victoria Beckham
(Related: Act, Acting, Relax, Want)
"I love the stage, I love the process of acting in theatre, but unfortunately, it doesn't pay the bills."
- Kabir Bedi
(Related: Love, Acting, Theatre)
"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things."
- Henry Ward Beecher
(Related: Art, Happiness, Power, Being, Lies)
"By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."
- Michael Behe
(Related: Causes)
"I started acting when I was about 18. I was a model for a couple of years before that."
- Catherine Bell
(Related: Acting, Years)
"In acting process, it's very difficult to explain. It's something very intimate, very private."
- Monica Bellucci
(Related: Acting)
"To me, all writing is like music. And especially dialogue. I studied music in college; that is what I wanted to be, a composer. Acting got me sidetracked."
- Dirk Benedict
(Related: Music, Acting, College, Writing)
"I knew I wanted children in my life. The acting was always in relation to it. Life at home is chaos. They're wonderful. They're such interesting human beings. I just love it. I'm lucky."
- Annette Bening
(Related: Home, Life, Love, Acting, Chaos, Children)
"Acting is not about being famous, it's about exploring the human soul."
- Annette Bening
(Related: Soul, Acting, Being, Famous)
"I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul, hopefully. So being able to do that in a way is terrifying, and in another way, truly liberating. And I like that about it."
- Annette Bening
(Related: Soul, Acting, Being, Hearing, Right)
"Faked enthusiasm is worse than bad acting - it is bad acting with the intent to deceive."
- Bo Bennett
(Related: Enthusiasm, Acting)
"Acting is something I love to do. I love to perform and I love the art, the craft of it."
- Jill Bennett
(Related: Love, Art, Acting)
"Acting is fantastic, but to be able to create a whole world on celluloid is amazing. It's like taking your dreams straight from your head and projecting them onto a screen."
- Amber Benson
(Related: Dreams, Acting, World)
"There were a couple of years where I was skating and acting at the same time."
- Julie Benz
(Related: Time, Acting, Years)
"I think for me it was a natural transition to move full time into acting rather than figure skating."
- Julie Benz
(Related: Time, Acting)
"I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me."
- Tom Berenger
(Related: Acting, Irish, Rebellion, Writing)
"One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Christian, Humanism, Right)
"If you took acting away from me, I'd stop breathing."
- Ingrid Bergman
(Related: Acting)
"I can do everything with ease on the stage, whereas in real life I feel too big and clumsy. So I didn't choose acting. It chose me."
- Ingrid Bergman
(Related: Life, Acting)
"Incidentally, I'm still looking for acting work, my first love."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Love, Work, Acting, First, First love)
"I'm very much looking forward to my 30-40 years of acting, and, as I get older, I'm really looking forward to some of the roles that are out there to play."
- Corbin Bernsen
(Related: Acting, Play, Years)
"Well, acting was just in me and I tried to avoid it. I didn't want to do what my parents did, you know?"
- Corbin Bernsen
(Related: Acting, Parents, Want)
"The trouble with talking about acting is that it's like sex. It's enormously fun to do but just dreadfully embarrassing when you have to talk about it."
- Paul Bettany
(Related: Sex, Acting, Fun, Talk, Talking, Trouble)
"I would say that one of the things that we are proud of is that we are attracting very interesting guest stars. One is Tyne Daly, who has done a wonderful job."
- Michael Biehn
(Related: Guest, Job, Stars)
"Well, I'm never happier than when I'm acting."
- Jason Biggs
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is a tough business, and you need to be in good shape mentally and physically."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Business, Acting)
"I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Acting, Order)
"I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Change, Life, Experience, Acting, Being, Freedom, Limits, Prison)
"I really feel that the talent I have is acting. Freedom and the possibility of play-that is what I like to have."
- Jacqueline Bisset
(Related: Talent, Possibility, Acting, Freedom, Play)
"You need to become a good listener. As you're working, you hear someone else's lines and how you absorb them becomes your acting."
- Jacqueline Bisset
(Related: Acting)
"It was only when I realized how actors have the power to move people that I decided to pursue acting as a career."
- Cate Blanchett
(Related: Power, People, Acting, Actors, Career)
"A lot of girls ask for advice on how to get into acting, and I'm kind of the worst person to ask, because it just kind of fell in my lap... I was just in the right place at the right time."
- Alexis Bledel
(Related: Time, Acting, Advice, Girls, Right)
"When everyone around you is doing all this incredible pirate acting and you're having to sort of play the straight guy and move the story forward, you kind of want to be doing some of that pirate ripping it up stuff, but in truth, to be a part of that project is what I love."
- Orlando Bloom
(Related: Love, Truth, Acting, Play, Project, Want)
"The kind of acting I used to enjoy no longer exists because your prime consideration is the budget, running time, the cost - and whether they'll understand it in Milwaukee."
- Dirk Bogarde
(Related: Time, Acting, Consideration, Running)
"I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing."
- Eric Bogosian
(Related: Acting)
"I started acting when I was in high school, started writing when I got to New York in 1975."
- Eric Bogosian
(Related: Acting, School, Writing)
"I love playing other people's work. I love acting."
- Eric Bogosian
(Related: Love, Work, People, Acting)
"People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change."
- David Bohm
(Related: Change, People, Development, Meaning, Opposition)
"I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture."
- Danny Bonaduce
(Related: School)
"When actors are being defensive and defending their position, that is when you get less than good acting."
- John Boorman
(Related: Acting, Actors, Being)
"Television and film acting is really fun because you are working with other people and you are not completely responsible for the outcome of the project."
- Alex Borstein
(Related: People, Acting, Film, Fun, Project, Television)
"Acting is a life experience. I'm always learning things when I'm making a movie. So the fame part of it is fine when you consider what you get out of this job."
- Kate Bosworth
(Related: Life, Experience, Acting, Fame, Job, Learning)
"I have done so much: modeling, acting, singing, the calendar, the lingerie line, and there have been times where I have wanted to give up but I went for it."
- Caprice Bourret
(Related: Acting, Singing)
"I started acting professionally at age 19."
- Bruce Boxleitner
(Related: Age, Acting)
"All real freedom springs from necessity, for it can be gained only through the exercise of the individual will, and that will can be roused to energetic action only by the force of necessity acting upon it from the outside to spur it to effort."
- Anna C. Brackett
(Related: Action, Acting, Effort, Exercise, Force, Freedom, Necessity, Will)
"This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live."
- Omar N. Bradley
(Related: Life, Decision, Act, Acting, Circumstances, Mind)
"By going over your day in imagination before you begin it, you can begin acting successfully at any moment."
- Dorthea Brande
(Related: Imagination, Acting, Day)
"Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity."
- Marlon Brando
(Related: Life, Acting, Expression, Maturity, Quitting)
"The whole thing about acting, the draw for me, is the opportunity to do things you don't get to do in real life."
- Benjamin Bratt
(Related: Life, Opportunity, Acting)
"A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can."
- Jeff Bridges
(Related: Work, Acting)
"One of the things I want to do that's outside the realm of acting and the arts - although both have their place in this - is ending childhood hunger here in America."
- Jeff Bridges
(Related: Acting, America, Childhood, Ending, Hunger, Want)
"I knew absolutely nothing about acting, and had to be taught everything. Some people are born naturals and know how to walk, talk and hold themselves. I didn't and had to learn everything."
- Richard Briers
(Related: People, Acting, Nothing, Talk)
"I didn't go to acting school, but I've been observing my fellow man for 66 years now, and I would think that's the best school there is."
- Wilford Brimley
(Related: Acting, Man, Now, School, Years)
"I wouldn't mind producing a movie with a music storyline, but acting in one is too close to home."
- Garth Brooks
(Related: Home, Music, Acting, Mind)
"For me, acting is doing."
- Pierce Brosnan
(Related: Acting)
"Acting allows me to explore new worlds, to discover characters by delving into their lives, and ultimately to become someone else entirely."
- Pierce Brosnan
(Related: Acting)
"And to Shakespeare I owe my vision of the world as a theater, wherein all humans are acting out their parts."
- James Broughton
(Related: Vision, Acting, Shakespeare, Theater, World)
"Having the right people around you all the time is important. I do take the acting seriously. But this is all fun. I look at it like smoke and mirrors. I still think it's a dream, but I ain't pinching myself yet."
- Chris Brown
(Related: Time, People, Dream, Acting, Fun, Right)
"I've heard though that there is a younger generation of tonal French composers who are reacting with vigour."
- Gavin Bryars
(Related: Composers)
"I was doing acting work at Fox - bit pieces with Greg Peck in The Gunfighter and things like that - and grew up more or less as a Fox contract player in about two years."
- Larry Buchanan
(Related: Work, Acting, Years)
"I don't like to intellectualize about my acting."
- Genevieve Bujold
(Related: Acting)
"The main thing in acting is honesty, to feel the humanity and get to the essence of the character. You can't put anything into a character that you haven't got within you."
- Genevieve Bujold
(Related: Character, Honesty, Acting, Humanity)
"People often argue about this. Obviously one of the skills in performance is acting, and you can't expect every Romeo to really be in love with their Juliet!"
- Deborah Bull
(Related: Love, People, Performance, Acting)
"Great acting may be a turn-on, but it won't make me fantasize about the person for a week."
- Sandra Bullock
(Related: Acting, May)
"France turned a deaf ear to the demands, but Ho had succeeded in attracting great publicity in progressive French circles to the situation in Indochina."
- Wilfred Burchett
(Related: France, Publicity)
"If laws acting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should be confined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to the legislatures of the States."
- Martin Van Buren
(Related: Acting, Laws, Limits, states)
"Then a year would go by and I'd realize I love the acting too much and it is my identity and I don't know how to be anything but an actress. It's who and what I am, so I always come back."
- Delta Burke
(Related: Love, Acting, Identity)
"I loved getting to do Promised Land with him. I mean, he's really there for you. We did one very emotional scene in the church. He's just a wonderful acting partner. You feel very safe with him."
- Delta Burke
(Related: Church, Acting, Land)
"In my teens or twenties I wanted to do Blanche. Now I'm over that. Those roles are not attracting me now. Which is odd, because that's what most every actress would want to go do."
- Delta Burke
(Related: Now, Want)
"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Fear, Acting, Mind, Passion)
"The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
- George Burns
(Related: Honesty, Acting)
"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
- George Burns
(Related: Honesty, Acting)
"Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that."
- John Burroughs
(Related: Truth, Acting, Key, Voice)
"In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed."
- William S. Burroughs
(Related: Acting, Space, Writing)
"Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage."
- William S. Burroughs
(Related: Acting, Being, Man)
"Well my taste wasn't very good when I first started out. But later, when I began to appreciate the art of acting, I would say the actress I most admire is Vanessa Redgrave."
- Ellen Burstyn
(Related: Art, Acting, First, Taste)
"We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not want Congress involved. Your guy's acting like he's king. His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost! And the same thing can happen to him!"
- Dan Burton
(Related: Dad, Acting, Approval, Congress, Justice, President, Want)
"It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I started acting."
- Steve Buscemi
(Related: Acting, School)
"I was going to buy a van and move to LA so I could secretly pursue acting without any of my friends knowing."
- Steve Buscemi
(Related: Acting, Friends)
"Teachers make a difference, and we would serve our students better by focusing on attracting and retaining the quality teachers by raising teacher pay."
- Jeb Bush
(Related: Quality, Difference, Students, Teachers)
"You know, my parents have always been incredibly supportive. I'm an only child, so we're very close. There's just the three of us. They're exceptional parents but also great friends. My father was able to take his hobby, photography, and turn it into a beautiful career. So when they saw how much I loved acting, they were 100 percent behind me."
- Sophia Bush
(Related: Father, Acting, Career, Friends, Parents, Photography)
"And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that."
- Gabriel Byrne
(Related: Acting, Reality)
"I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting."
- Lord Byron
(Related: Acting, Sensuality)
"There's nothing more boring than actors talking about acting."
- James Caan
(Related: Acting, Actors, Nothing, Talking)
"Now my drug is writing or acting, being creative."
- Scott Caan
(Related: Acting, Being, Now, Writing)
"Acting with Denzel is like playing tennis with someone that's better than you. You either play better tennis or get blown off the court."
- Dean Cain
(Related: Acting, Court, Play, Tennis)
"The only credit I can give them. They synchronize wonderful. That's all. They synchronize very - you would have thought that they were actually acting, but they were synching all the time, and that's a rough job."
- Cab Calloway
(Related: Time, Thought, Acting, Credit, Job)
"You're being cast for your acting ability. It's not based on the way your body functions. If you're playing a lead in a movie, it's for that character and they'll tailor it to you. In a dance company, you have to fit in a definite mold."
- Neve Campbell
(Related: Dance, Character, Ability, Acting, Being, Body, Company)
"There's a great deal of child left in me and acting is fun. It's a make believe thing."
- David Canary
(Related: Acting, Fun)
"His acting remains forever fixed in a time that never dates."
- Vincent Canby
(Related: Time, Acting)
"Yes, I made mistakes by rebelling, by acting out in confused ways."
- Jennifer Capriati
(Related: Acting, Mistakes)
"There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane."
- Orson Scott Card
(Related: Acting, Writing)
"Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting."
- Robert Carlyle
(Related: Home, Acting, Night, Space, Therapy, World)
"Acting? No, it is not for me. I would be terrible."
- Kim Carnes
(Related: Acting)
"I'd love to do acting, but it'd definitely have to be comedy. I can't do serious. It's completely beyond me."
- Allan Carr
(Related: Love, Acting, Comedy)
"I kind of fell into acting, but I have sung and trained since I was in the eighth grade."
- Tia Carrere
(Related: Acting)
"I was sitting in the looping studio late one night, and I had this epiphany that they weren't paying me for my acting, for God's sake, but to own me. And from then on, it became clear and an awful lot easier to deal with."
- Angela Carter
(Related: God, Acting, Night)
"A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting."
- Carlos Castaneda
(Related: Knowledge, Acting, Man, Thinking)
"It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to... In L.A., I'm just another character actor."
- Dan Castellaneta
(Related: Character, Acting, Actor)
"I've made a kind of pact with myself where I said, It doesn't matter what it is as long as I'm acting."
- Dan Castellaneta
(Related: Acting)
"I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing."
- Dan Castellaneta
(Related: Acting, College, School, Writing)
"I need to decide whether to apply for college or delay it for a couple of years while I pursue some more acting projects. Right now I'm trying to sort things out, so I can make the right choices."
- Lacey Chabert
(Related: Acting, Choices, College, Delay, Now, Projects, Right, Trying, Years)
"I love acting, and it was really important to me to give it a real shot."
- Sarah Chalke
(Related: Love, Acting)
"The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings."
- Jung Chang
(Related: People, Feelings, Acting, Fashion, Mourning, Tears)
"I didn't fall in love with acting until I did a few films. Now, I couldn't live without it."
- Geraldine Chaplin
(Related: Love, Acting, Now)
"All Asian parents are into your children having a respectable, decent stable job. Acting was unimaginable to my parents."
- Joan Chen
(Related: Acting, Children, Job, Parents)
"Acting for me is not a bad habit like smoking that I must make an effort to quit. I love acting; I love directing."
- Joan Chen
(Related: Love, Habit, Acting, Effort, Smoking)
"As an actress I find the most enjoyable part of acting is really just to please the director. I just want to please my director."
- Joan Chen
(Related: Acting, Want)
"How do you explain certain physical qualities that somehow sell on screen? You're born with it... Certain people are just more watchable, and I was more watchable, but I don't think I understood acting or drama very well when I was a kid."
- Joan Chen
(Related: People, Acting, Drama)
"Acting is actually private."
- Joan Chen
(Related: Acting)
"I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Architecture, Acting, Planning, Right)
"I think that Mos Def is the best actor, but when you talk about rappers in films, I don't really think the quality of the acting is most important because most rappers are put in movies because of the personality and people want to see that."
- Morris Chestnut
(Related: Movies, Quality, People, Acting, Actor, Personality, Talk, Want)
"A musical would be fantastic. The soundtrack would be great and I'd like to do acting."
- Melanie Chisholm
(Related: Acting)
"I don't let it bother me too much if someone doesn't like me. I just figure there's no accounting for taste. It's not me, it's my acting. It's like if someone doesn't like someone's food, they just don't like my acting."
- Anna Chlumsky
(Related: Food, Acting, Taste)
"One of the things I find about acting is that the less the audience knows about the actor, the more they're able to believe in him in the role."
- Hayden Christensen
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"I had never done any serious acting before, but I decided that it was a chance that I should take."
- Helena Christensen
(Related: Acting, Chance)
"I think I've got something when I'm onscreen, but that's nothing to do with acting or talent."
- Julie Christie
(Related: Talent, Acting, Nothing)
"I was born with a need to be the center of attention, and, of course, you're the center of the world when you're acting."
- Julie Christie
(Related: Acting, Attention, World)
"I kind of have a rededication in my life now to acting because I'm very fond of being in this movie."
- Thomas Haden Church
(Related: Life, Acting, Being, Now)
"The danger chiefly lies in acting well; no crime's so great as daring to excel."
- Charles Churchill
(Related: Acting, Crime, Danger, Lies)
"My father said, If you want to do acting, you have to be successful, which is a silly thing to say."
- Diane Cilento
(Related: Father, Successful, Acting, Silly, Want)
"In some ways, I've always approached singing as acting, and the voice is just like a way of carrying the song."
- Petula Clark
(Related: Acting, Singing, Song, Voice)
"You know what black hatred women feel toward me as soon as they see me, until I return inside my shell, they use every possible weapon. As soon as a generous man tries to help me out, a woman is here to hold his arm and prevent him from acting."
- Camille Claudel
(Related: Women, Acting, Hatred, Help, Man, Woman)
"When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy."
- John Cleese
(Related: Acting, American, Comedy, Kids, Principles, Problems, Teenage, Writing)
"But then acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with."
- John Cleese
(Related: Acting, Competence)
"A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe."
- Georges Clemenceau
(Related: Action, Acting, Man)
"Acting, to me, is about the incredible adventure of examining the landscape of human heart and soul. That's basically what we do."
- Glenn Close
(Related: Soul, Heart, Acting, Adventure)
"I'm too busy acting like I'm not Naive. I've seen it all, I was here first."
- Kurt Cobain
(Related: Acting, First)
"It was the desire to do the complete thing. I only took taking acting lessons because my whole thing, really, was to direct. But my first jobs were acting jobs."
- James Coburn
(Related: Acting, Desire, First, Jobs)
"An easily accessible and transparent database of contract information will bring sunshine into the confusing and sometimes shadowy practice of government contracting."
- Tom Coburn
(Related: Government, Contracting, Information, Practice, Will)
"The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions."
- Paulo Coelho
(Related: People, Opportunity, Acting, Mistakes, Opinions)
"The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad."
- Stephen Cohen
(Related: Home, Acting, Meaning)
"The next night I got on an airplane, and flew to New York and looked into acting schools. Four or five acting schools. One of which was the Neighborhood Playhouse, which I started at six months there after."
- Dabney Coleman
(Related: Acting, Months, Night, Schools)
"I have a theory about that, if you have to say something, if you have encourage for one second a prospective acting student - he should not go in to acting."
- Dabney Coleman
(Related: Acting, Theory)
"But it is a hard, it's a hard profession teaching acting."
- Dabney Coleman
(Related: Acting, Profession, Teaching)
"I think that you get something for your acting from almost anything you do."
- Dabney Coleman
(Related: Acting)
"I still have the desire to do the job of acting. It's just a matter of whether I'll be allowed to do the job of acting that remains to be seen. There are only so many brick walls that I'm willing to beat my head on."
- Gary Coleman
(Related: Acting, Desire, Job)
"America has a strategic interest in continuing to welcome international students at our colleges, universities, and high schools. Attracting the world's top scientific scholars helps to keep our economy competitive."
- Norm Coleman
(Related: America, Economy, Interest, Schools, Students, World)
"In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part."
- Jeremy Collier
(Related: Happiness, Life, Men, Acting, Existence, Man, Opinion)
"And I used to write novels and little stories and compositions and I - but I put them away because I started acting when I was 17. So there wasn't much time."
- Joan Collins
(Related: Time, Acting)
"I do it because I love acting, I love working, and whether it's radio, television, films, theater, I don't care as long as I can get out there and do it."
- Joan Collins
(Related: Love, Acting, Care, Television, Theater)
"Bit parts in Mediocre TV shows won't develop your acting chops."
- Stephen Collins
(Related: Acting)
"I gravitated to acting out of a mixture of instinct, naivete and opportunity."
- Jeffrey Combs
(Related: Opportunity, Acting, Instinct)
"Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn't look as if I'm doing that."
- Perry Como
(Related: Acting, Body, Coaches, Hollywood)
"But acting just sort of happened and I found that I loved it. It was such a challenge."
- Rachael Leigh Cook
(Related: Acting, Challenge)
"I didn't want to start acting like a cartoon."
- Rachael Leigh Cook
(Related: Acting, Want)
"It's an acting job - acting natural."
- Alistair Cooke
(Related: Acting, Job)
"Acting is all about timing. I mean, who has better timing than the MCs?"
- Coolio
(Related: Acting)
"They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react - do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it."
- Alice Cooper
(Related: Power, Sex, America, Nothing, Project, Violence)
"So if I keep making mistakes on Broadway or tape or film, producing, directing or acting, I can go along and do it - so long as I'm not investing too much capital in these things."
- Jackie Cooper
(Related: Acting, Film, Mistakes)
"Well, they just don't know anything else except that one form of their business, acting, and they don't really want to learn any other part of it, or they would. Directing and producing and putting a show together is very creative, for me."
- Jackie Cooper
(Related: Business, Acting, Want)
"Acting is a win-win situation. There is no risk involved. That's why I get tired of hearing actors who try to make out that there's a downside to it. Fame is an odd thing. It bugs you a little bit, but it's really not bad."
- John Corbett
(Related: Acting, Actors, Bugs, Fame, Hearing, Risk)
"They see us interacting with people, they see us doing serious interviews, they see us having fun, and when you're conversing with someone, you get a much clearer impression of who that person is than if they are just reading into a news piece."
- Katie Couric
(Related: People, Impression, Fun, News, Reading)
"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
(Related: Thought, Dance, Dream, Acting, Artist, Being, Song, Theatre)
"Acting is the only thing I ever really wanted to do, and I'm really ill-prepared to do anything else."
- Nikki Cox
(Related: Acting)
"The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of 'targets' to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting."
- Martin Van Creveld
(Related: Acting, Enemy, Living, Needs)
"Our country was thereby saved from the consequences of its distracting individualistic conception of democracy, and its merely legal conception of nationality. It was because the followers of Jackson and Douglas did fight for it, that the Union was preserved."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Legal, Consequences, Country, Democracy, Fight, Followers, Nationality)
"But with my last film, Spider it was agony. The money was always disappearing, nobody got paid, it was very difficult - and it's very distracting from the process of making the movie, of course. So I think things have been getting harder and harder."
- David Cronenberg
(Related: Money, Film)
"I had a head start in acting. Because of my parents, I had a SAG card, an agent and a recognizable name. But I knew if I screwed up, people would never forget. I'd be dead."
- Mary Crosby
(Related: People, Acting, Forget, Name, Parents)
"I couldn't do an acting job just to be working. It really had to have some soul to it."
- Marcia Cross
(Related: Soul, Acting, Job)
"That's what I always enjoyed about acting, the real adrenalin rush. My heart - still before I go on stage - crashing out of my chest. That's thrilling to me."
- Billy Crudup
(Related: Heart, Acting)
"The exciting part of acting, I don't know how else to explain it, are those moments when you surprise yourself."
- Tom Cruise
(Related: Acting, Moments)
"Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro."
- Billy Crystal
(Related: Acting)
"I took acting and elocution lessons, to get rid of my Sicilian accent."
- Maria Grazia Cucinotta
(Related: Acting)
"John was the smartest and most amazing comedian I've ever worked with. I think more than teaching me about acting or comedy, he taught me about life and the love of people and respect of people."
- Kaley Cuoco
(Related: Life, Love, People, Acting, Comedy, Respect, Teaching)
"I've been not only articulating the dissatisfaction with Albany, I've been acting on it. I've been very aggressive in bringing public integrity cases and public corruption cases and bringing cases against sitting legislators."
- Andrew Cuomo
(Related: Acting, Corruption, Integrity, Legislators, Public)
"The government gave me enough money to go to acting school."
- Tony Curtis
(Related: Government, Money, Acting, School)
"Acting is the most brotherly and sisterly profession in the world."
- Cyril Cusack
(Related: Acting, Profession, World)
"Good acting is consistency of performance."
- Jim Dale
(Related: Consistency, Performance, Acting)
"The one thing I learned the most about acting is it takes a tremendous amount of courage to go there and stand still. It takes courage and guts to step out of your mind frame and depict something."
- Carson Daly
(Related: Courage, Acting, Mind)
"Love is as strict as acting. If you want to love somebody, stand there and do it. If you don't, don't. There are no other choices."
- Tyne Daly
(Related: Love, Acting, Choices, Want)
"In my experience it's not essential to get on with the person that you're acting opposite."
- Hugh Dancy
(Related: Experience, Acting)
"Acting is the greatest answer to my loneliness that I have found."
- Claire Danes
(Related: Acting, Loneliness)
"Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself."
- Rodney Dangerfield
(Related: Time, Acting, Actor, Deals, Emotions)
"Acting is really only part of my life. I'm addicted to it."
- Blythe Danner
(Related: Life, Acting)
"It was in high school that I first became interested in acting. We put on lots of plays."
- Blythe Danner
(Related: Acting, First, School)
"Maybe subconsciously I've kept activism separate from acting because it's important to me in a more profound way."
- Blythe Danner
(Related: Acting, Activism)
"I decided I was going to give up singing and concentrate on acting, and a result of that, I didn't do another film for two to three years, and I don't blame it on anybody but myself."
- Bobby Darin
(Related: Acting, Blame, Film, Result, Singing, Years)
"In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year."
- Larry David
(Related: Acting, Army, Duty, Obligation, Service, Years)
"With a recent birthday, I've been acting now for twenty years."
- Thayer David
(Related: Birthday, Acting, Now, Years)
"I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs."
- Alan Davies
(Related: Acting)
"Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation."
- Bette Davis
(Related: Acting, Creation, Trade, Wonder)
"Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life."
- Bette Davis
(Related: Life, Acting)
"When I first started acting, and we would all sit down and talk about Shakespeare and how great it was. I thought well, I suppose it is."
- Judy Davis
(Related: Thought, Acting, First, Shakespeare, Talk)
"Sometimes, when you're acting, you are so in the moment that you don't even remember what just happened."
- Kristin Davis
(Related: Acting)
"Can you, in a million years, imagine another female senator - Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Claire McCaskill - reacting to being called 'ma'am' like Barbara Boxer did? This is the kind of sanctimonious self-absorption on the modern left that makes my teeth itch."
- Mark Davis
(Related: Being, Self, Years)
"We were over in Europe all the time their posters were up. That's why I liked them. So now all of a sudden they're going to get a band hat on, and say people aren't acting the right way?"
- Kim Deal
(Related: Time, People, Acting, Europe, Now, Right)
"To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves."
- James Dean
(Related: People, Acting)
"When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that."
- James Dean
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us."
- Eugene Delacroix
(Related: Life, Nothing)
"I love being on stage or in front of the camera. My work brings me a lot of joy. It helps me figure out who I am. I'm really lucky that I get to make a living at acting."
- Dana Delany
(Related: Love, Work, Acting, Being, Joy, Living)
"I feel like my music is just an extension of my acting. I treat the songs like scenes that tell a story... it's very similar. My favorite thing is when cartoon fans show up to my live gigs! They are always the most kick-butt audience members 'cause they're not trying to act all cool like a lot of the music fans do! It's refreshing!!"
- Grey DeLisle
(Related: Music, Act, Acting, Fans, Favorite, Songs, Trying)
"I love acting and I still want to do it, but I've such an instinct for directing, it's something that comes naturally to me. It's why I'm here on this planet."
- Julie Delpy
(Related: Love, Acting, Instinct, Want)
"We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other - in balance with it... The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power."
- Barbara Deming
(Related: Power, Act, Acting, Balance, Fact, Force, Name, Respect)
"We have been blessed with a healthy, growing economy, with more Americans going back to work, and with our Nation acting as a positive force for good in the world."
- Jim DeMint
(Related: Work, Positive, Acting, Americans, Economy, Force, Nation, World)
"Acting is also working with people who invite you into their dreams and trust you with their innermost being."
- Catherine Deneuve
(Related: Dreams, Trust, People, Acting, Being)
"I didn't devote my life to acting. I give a lot to my work, but my life has always been more important."
- Catherine Deneuve
(Related: Life, Work, Acting)
"Real acting is realistic no matter what the medium."
- James Denton
(Related: Acting)
"I think theatre helped, only because it was acting experience. I got to work with a lot of directors."
- James Denton
(Related: Work, Experience, Acting, Theatre)
"I get my exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise."
- Chauncey Depew
(Related: Acting, Exercise, Friends)
"With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying."
- Johnny Depp
(Related: Acting, Lying, Play)
"In Hitchcock's eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with."
- Bruce Dern
(Related: Acting, Being, Eyes)
"Earlier, I used to charge territories instead of my fees as an actor, but I realised it was better to keep the two apart. Now, I take my fees in cash, for acting, and keep the distribution thing separate."
- Ajay Devgan
(Related: Acting, Actor, Now)
"Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent."
- Anita Diament
(Related: History, Love, Acting, Americans, Shakespeare, Writing)
"Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that."
- Jared Diamond
(Related: Hope, Acting, Driving, Years)
"Acting is something different to everybody. I just know that if you watch an actor or actress getting better and better, I think that's them just understanding themselves better and better."
- Cameron Diaz
(Related: Acting, Actor, Understanding)
"Acting allows me to tell a lot of stories, you know start at the beginning, finish at the end, and tell everything in between. Modelling is just an image."
- Cameron Diaz
(Related: Acting, Beginning, End)
"I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy and it's taken me a while to admit that acting like a little child and being a jerk and a punk is fun."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
(Related: Acting, Being, Fun, Punk)
"I've been planted here to be a vessel for acting... That's why I'm really taking any part, regardless of how complicated it's going to be."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
(Related: Acting)
"Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
"The good thing about acting is that it always keeps you on your toes... It's not like any other job where you can go in and do the same thing as yesterday."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
(Related: Acting, Job, Yesterday)
"The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it... It's a great outlet. I'm not really sure who I am - it seems I change every day."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
(Related: Change, Character, Acting, Day)
"I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character."
- Vin Diesel
(Related: Father, Character, Acting, Theater, World)
"I definitely think there was some overacting on the part of the customers and the wait staff. The people who came in during the shooting were clearly there to have a moment on television, and that's fine."
- Rocco DiSpirito
(Related: People, Television)
"I began acting at age eight, but if you don't stay on your game then people pass on you. Being on a show, it's a little easy to get comfortable, so I'm trying to get back on it. I'm taking some acting classes and watching movies, and I'm just trying to stay up with other actors."
- Jason Dohring
(Related: Age, Movies, People, Acting, Actors, Being, Trying)
"I'm now learning how to distinguish when I'm acting and when I'm not acting - offstage as well as onstage."
- Micky Dolenz
(Related: Acting, Learning, Now)
"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."
- Vincent D'Onofrio
(Related: Experience, Act, Acting, Actors, Mystery, Nothing)
"I took a route of acting, rather than starmaking, so it cost me a lot financially."
- Vincent D'Onofrio
(Related: Acting)
"Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that."
- Vincent D'Onofrio
(Related: Truth, Acting, Key, Voice)
"I started acting before that when I was about 13 or 14."
- Stephen Dorff
(Related: Acting)
"I think acting is only one part of the piece of the movie. I'ts an important piece, but I'd like to be involved in all the other aspects of making movies."
- Stephen Dorff
(Related: Movies, Acting)
"In high school, my goal was to be a writer for SNL, then I got into the acting."
- Illeana Douglas
(Related: Goal, Acting, School, Writer)
"When I get to my deathbed, I don't want to take my last breath and say, Well, how glorious. I've left the world my acting credits. I won't even think that."
- Lesley-Anne Down
(Related: Acting, Want, World)
"Acting is always a challenge."
- Robert Downey, Jr.
(Related: Acting, Challenge)
"I know very little about acting. I'm just an incredibly gifted faker."
- Robert Downey, Jr.
(Related: Acting)
"I did some acting in high school, I knew I really liked it."
- Rachel Dratch
(Related: Acting, School)
"I don't know what its like for most actors, but really clearly for myself acting has always been the fulfilment of personal fantasies. It isn't just art, its about being a person I've always wanted to be, or being in a situation, or being a hero."
- Richard Dreyfuss
(Related: Art, Acting, Actors, Being)
"I was equally in love with singing and acting from an early age."
- Minnie Driver
(Related: Age, Love, Acting, Singing)
"One of the nice things about acting is that it allows you to open up to the other people within you."
- David Duchovny
(Related: People, Acting, Open)
"I went there and helped him shuffle pictures of people, and one of the agents asked me if I was interested in acting. Of course, I was a little bit interested in it; I'm sure that's part of the reason I moved to L.A. even though I never admitted it to myself."
- Josh Duhamel
(Related: People, Acting, Reason)
"Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it."
- Elaine Dundy
(Related: Acting)
"Since I also act, sometimes I get over my resentment and commit to the pitch as an acting job."
- Christopher Durang
(Related: Act, Acting, Job, Resentment)
"The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority."
- Will Durant
(Related: Acting, Machine, Majority, Minority, United)
"It's easy to play a bad girl: You just do everything you've been told not to do, and you don't have to deal with the consequences, because it's only acting."
- Eliza Dushku
(Related: Acting, Consequences, Play)
"Acting is the easiest money you'll ever make in your life, and directing is probably the hardest money."
- Charles S. Dutton
(Related: Money, Life, Acting)
"I didn't go to film school, I went to acting school."
- Charles S. Dutton
(Related: Acting, Film, School)
"I'll keep on acting 'til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven't lost my enthusiasm yet!"
- Robert Duvall
(Related: Business, Enthusiasm, Acting)
"But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman."
- Shelley Duvall
(Related: Life, Acting, Past, Years)
"Acting in films hasn't changed me. I feel exactly the same."
- Shelley Duvall
(Related: Acting)
"Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed."
- Wayne Dyer
(Related: Life, Acting, Day, Future, Past)
"My point here is I think international pressures of our acting unilaterally again are going to be such that the administration will say, well, we just can't take this on now."
- Lawrence Eagleburger
(Related: Acting, Now, Will)
"Even though Rush is not me and the situations were very different, I think, in the Rush Limbaugh thing, ESPN was criticized for not acting, and you remember that after a couple days of controversy over Rush."
- Gregg Easterbrook
(Related: Acting, Controversy)
"I did a film once that I was killed in. It was a painful, horrifying day. It was a wonderful day from the standpoint of acting, but I was a wreck otherwise."
- Leslie Easterbrook
(Related: Acting, Day, Film)
"When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy."
- Leslie Easterbrook
(Related: Acting, Comedy, Desire, First, Opera, Play, Theater)
"The money is better in films and television. But in terms of acting, theatre is more rewarding."
- Christopher Eccleston
(Related: Money, Acting, Television, Theatre)
"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
(Related: Experience, Soul, Character, Acting, Actor, Theatre)
"And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system. They should be counter-acting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent."
- Sibel Edmonds
(Related: Congress, Corruption, Court, Pressure, Saying, Senate)
"It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: Nature, Science, Acting, Credit, Insecurity, Man, Mind)
"The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded."
- Jesse Eisenberg
(Related: Experience, Acting, Emotions, Environment, Joy, Will)
"If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day."
- Jesse Eisenberg
(Related: Life, Acting, Day)
"Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college."
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
(Related: Acting, College, Drama, Interest, School, Theater)
"Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Belief, Character, Acting, Sound)
"Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life."
- George Eliot
(Related: Life, Idea, Acting, Nothing)
"I am very driven. I work really hard, whether it's acting or my charity or even poker. When I focus on something I give it my all."
- Shannon Elizabeth
(Related: Work, Acting, Charity, Focus, Poker)
"About 10,000 years ago, males and females were acting equitably and were treating one another as equals, and then males took over the power, because they have physical power and physical strength."
- Jane Elliot
(Related: Power, Strength, Acting, Years)
"Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour."
- Bret Easton Ellis
(Related: Acting, Writing)
"Every now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie."
- Mike Epps
(Related: People, Acting, Dying, Friends, Now, Reason, Struggle)
"That's a tough question; I've been acting since I was 10. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I guess something along those lines. I wouldn't want a 9-5 job."
- Will Estes
(Related: Dad, Acting, Job, Question, Want)
"I've been acting since I was 10. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I guess something along those lines. I wouldn't want a 9-5 job."
- Will Estes
(Related: Dad, Acting, Job, Want)
"No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will."
- Euripides
(Related: People, Wealth, Acting, Fortune, Law, Will)
"I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage."
- Dame Edith Evans
(Related: Courage, Acting)
"Game management is accomplished by staying constantly alert and then reading and reacting to potential problem situations before they materialize. It all boils down to paying attention to details."
- Jim Evans
(Related: Management, Attention, Potential, Reading)
"I wanted to act; that was my one goal. I wanted to devote all my time to acting and not waitressing or anything else."
- Edie Falco
(Related: Time, Goal, Act, Acting)
"I was able to support myself by acting alone about six years ago. Until then, I was just scraping by."
- Edie Falco
(Related: Acting, Support, Years)
"There's a whole catalogue of actors that never went to acting school."
- Dennis Farina
(Related: Acting, Actors, School)
"Christ does not save us by acting a parable of divine love; he acts the parable of divine love by saving us. That is the Christian faith."
- Austin Farrer
(Related: Faith, Love, Christian, Acting)
"I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from."
- William Faulkner
(Related: Acting, Help, Meeting, Words)
"Acting is the most fun. I like to do it and it's great that I can still do that, but you know, you don't really have a lot of control over things, so it's real hit or miss."
- Jon Favreau
(Related: Control, Acting, Fun)
"My acting career began at age three and my parents got me into it. I was in a McDonald's commercial."
- Corey Feldman
(Related: Age, Acting, Career, Parents)
"The fundamental point in fabricating a chain reacting machine is of course to see to it that each fission produces a certain number of neutrons and some of these neutrons will again produce fission."
- Enrico Fermi
(Related: Machine, Will)
"I'm sure acting is a deeply neurotic thing to do."
- Ralph Fiennes
(Related: Acting)
"That is one of the reasons one enjoys acting. Now and again, you get scenes where you work with somebody really good and you have a good time trying to make it really work and really work well."
- Albert Finney
(Related: Time, Work, Acting, Now, Trying)
"You should play with real musicians; the best music comes from real people interacting with each other."
- John Fogerty
(Related: Music, People, Musicians, Play)
"I want to die in the saddle. I love writing, producing, acting, directing."
- Peter Fonda
(Related: Love, Acting, Want, Writing)
"I'm addicted to Altoids. I call them 'acting pills.'"
- Harrison Ford
"Acting in anger and hatred throughout my life, I frequently precipitated what I feared most, the loss of friendships and the need to rely upon the very people I'd abused."
- Luke Ford
(Related: Anger, Life, People, Acting, Hatred, Loss)
"It strikes me that these days, clubs don't even want players who can truly play any more; they just want athletes, quick guys who don't have a football brain, can just run and run; some of them, Jesus. I can never imagine acting like that."
- Robbie Fowler
(Related: Acting, Athletes, Football, Play, Quick, Want)
"I've done one movie. And it's not a movie I want to stand on as far as acting ability goes. I mean, I'm not going to win an Oscar anytime soon. I'm not Meryl Streep."
- Megan Fox
(Related: Ability, Acting, Want)
"I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked."
- Michael J. Fox
(Related: Acting, Ambition, First, Growing up, Writer)
"I have never, ever, had an acting partnership that was a safe, as full, and as exciting as the one I had with Tony. I didn't want to go through life without having a chance to taste it again."
- Genie Francis
(Related: Life, Acting, Chance, Partnership, Taste, Want)
"The pleasant surprise for me is that when I look into Tony's eyes, he's still 100% present, sharing everything that's going on. Acting with him is like a beautiful dance."
- Genie Francis
(Related: Dance, Acting, Eyes, Present, Sharing)
"I needed an outlet in high school and came across painting. I've actually been painting longer than I've been acting. A movie is a collaborative effort, and with painting you just have yourself."
- James Franco
(Related: Acting, Effort, Painting, School)
"Acting is an art form and you want to take roles that are challenged and it's more of a challenge I think to play dark characters. Not that I want to always play those, but it is a challenge and challenges are rewarding and fun."
- James Franco
(Related: Art, Acting, Challenge, Fun, Play, Want)
"I was kind of scared of failing at acting."
- James Franco
(Related: Acting)
"I believe the challenge the city faces is attracting continued development into the inner and western part of Jersey City. Nobody should be left behind as Jersey City continues to prosper and grow."
- Vincent Frank
(Related: Development, Challenge, Faces)
"The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing."
- Benjamin Franklin
(Related: Art, People, Acting)
"Forget acting. It's all about rock 'n' roll."
- Brendan Fraser
(Related: Acting, Forget)
"I like the character roles. Somewhere back there I really came to the conclusion in my mind that the difference between acting and stardom was major. And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in."
- Morgan Freeman
(Related: People, Character, Acting, Actor, Difference, Mind)
"My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it."
- Morgan Freeman
(Related: Acting)
"I knew at an early age I wanted to act. Acting was always easy for me. I don't believe in predestination, but I do believe that once you get where ever it is you are going, that is where you were going to be."
- Morgan Freeman
(Related: Age, Act, Acting)
"Acting means living, it's all I do and all I'm good at. If I weren't getting paid well, I would still be acting in a small troupe somewhere."
- Morgan Freeman
(Related: Acting, Living)
"Why do we go around acting as though everything was friendship and reliability when basically everything everywhere is full of sudden hate and ugliness?"
- Anna Freud
(Related: Friendship, Acting, Hate, Ugliness)
"Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day."
- Stephen Fry
(Related: Acting, Actor, Day, Grave, Writer, Writing, Years)
"This simple idea served to provide information on the geometrical shape of reacting molecules, and I was able to make the role of the frontier orbitals in chemical reactions more distinct through visualization, by drawing their diagrams."
- Kenichi Fukui
(Related: Idea, Information, Visualization)
"When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous."
- Edward Furlong
(Related: Life, Idea, Acting, Famous, Girls, Rest)
"I'm acting when I serve as a hostess, when I run my wig business. I was born to act, and life itself is the greatest part."
- Eva Gabor
(Related: Life, Business, Act, Acting)
"I started acting in my parents living room when I was five years old."
- Megan Gallagher
(Related: Acting, Living, Old, Parents, Years)
"As for acting, I took drama lessons when I was in high school."
- Megan Gallagher
(Related: Acting, Drama, School)
"I was about to get a degree in economics when I accepted that I'd be a lousy businessman, and if I didn't give acting a try I'd regret it for the rest of my life."
- Peter Gallagher
(Related: Life, Acting, Economics, Regret, Rest)
"I believe that acting in any medium is the same thing, it's discovering the truth in where you are."
- Victor Garber
(Related: Truth, Acting)
"I remember the first reading of the script we had and everybody was sitting around the table. I was very impressed with the level of acting that was in the room, particularly with Jennifer who has so much responsibility."
- Victor Garber
(Related: Acting, First, Reading, Responsibility)
"I'm very serious about acting."
- Victor Garber
(Related: Acting)
"People do more important jobs than acting in film that should be recognised, but for some reason it's big money, so people are elevated in status. If I was a bus driver, I'm sure you wouldn't be interviewing me."
- Adam Garcia
(Related: Money, People, Acting, Film, Jobs, Reason)
"My first interest was always music, and somehow that channelled itself into films and acting. I don't know what the natural transition of it was. I mean I acted a little bit when I was young and like any kid would in a community theatre."
- Andy Garcia
(Related: Music, Acting, Community, First, Interest, Theatre)
"I have only one rule in acting - trust the director and give him heart and soul."
- Ava Gardner
(Related: Trust, Soul, Heart, Acting)
"I love being physical and acting at the same time."
- Jennifer Garner
(Related: Love, Time, Acting, Being)
"The head of the CIA, it seems to me, would think long and hard before he admitted that former employees of his had been involved in the murder of the President of the United States-even if they weren't acting on behalf of the Agency when they did it."
- Jim Garrison
(Related: Acting, Employees, Murder, President, states, United)
"Acting is not that far from mental disease: An actor works on splitting his character into others. It is like a kind of schizophrenia."
- Vittorio Gassman
(Related: Character, Acting, Actor)
"I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer."
- Melissa George
(Related: Heart, Act, Acting, First, Saying, Words)
"The basic answer is that I wasn't happy or fulfilled by the job I had and I wanted my life to mean something to me, so I searched my life experience and realized that acting and performing were activities that I enjoyed all aspects of."
- Gil Gerard
(Related: Experience, Life, Acting, Job)
"When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate."
- Richard Gere
(Related: Acting)
"I'm less needy about needing to express myself through acting. I have many different lives outside of this that are extremely fulfilling."
- Richard Gere
(Related: Acting)
"Further, by acting decisively in Iraq, the United States has sent very strong signals to other nations that have been or could be terrorist sympathizers."
- Jim Gerlach
(Related: Acting, Iraq, Nations, states, United)
"A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas."
- Stan Getz
(Related: Ideas, Conversation, Friends)
"But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful."
- Boutros Boutros Ghali
(Related: Time, Acting, American, Consideration)
"It was a mistake. I was wrong, but I discovered this many years later. I was acting on the basis of this mandate given me by the most important leaders of the world: President Bush's father, prime minister of France, President Mitterand, the Chinese, everybody."
- Boutros Boutros Ghali
(Related: Father, Mistake, Acting, France, Leaders, President, Wrong, Years)
"I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago."
- Laura San Giacomo
(Related: Acting, College, University, Years)
"Acting is like lying. The art of lying well. I'm paid to tell elaborate lies."
- Mel Gibson
(Related: Art, Acting, Lies, Lying)
"Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself."
- John Gielgud
(Related: Acting, Forget, Glory, Shame)
"Among the many important provisions in the energy bill are the creation of an estimated half million new jobs, increased oil production, blackout protection, controlling fertilizer costs by stabilizing natural gas prices and enacting new efficiency benchmarks."
- Paul Gillmor
(Related: Creation, Efficiency, Energy, Jobs, Oil, Production, Protection)
"I have recently started acting lessons in south France, and I intend to commence acting lessons at Rada."
- David Ginola
(Related: Acting, France)
"Never get caught acting."
- Lillian Gish
(Related: Acting)
"I've been writing a lot, I've a few projects I'm trying to finance, I do some acting, I do some directing... Apart from that, if I could get lower that a ten handicap on my golf game I'd be thrilled."
- Paul M. Glaser
(Related: Finance, Acting, Golf, Projects, Trying, Writing)
"I kind of fell into acting.I was very lucky."
- Mark Goddard
(Related: Acting)
"It's really kind of a challenge to keep coordinated with the two station crews that we'll be interacting with. And of course one of them launched quite some time before our mission."
- Linda M. Godwin
(Related: Time, Challenge, Mission)
"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Action, Thoughts, Acting, Thinking, World)
"I'm not acting, but I am acting."
- Tracey Gold
(Related: Acting)
"I love acting. But I love being a mother. To be a full mother and a full person, you have to do what you love, and that's acting. But I like the best of both worlds."
- Tracey Gold
(Related: Love, Mother, Acting, Being)
"The art of acting is to be other than what you are."
- Whoopi Goldberg
(Related: Art, Acting)
"Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good."
- Whoopi Goldberg
(Related: Acting, Pretty)
"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting."
- Oliver Goldsmith
(Related: Acting)
"When I was a teenager I loved acting, but I really just loved it for myself. I didn't like the fact that anyone else saw the work I was doing."
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt
(Related: Work, Acting, Fact)
"I was changing a light bulb over Groucho Marx's bed, so I took my shoes off, got on his bed and changed the bulb. When I got off the bed he said: 'That's the best acting you've ever done.'"
- Elliott Gould
(Related: Acting, Bed, Light)
"It's great to have an acting job in the age of Reality TV."
- Lauren Graham
(Related: Age, Acting, Job, Reality)
"I became an actor, and because I had success as an actor, I became famous. I was acting for quite a while before I got famous; television made me famous. I guess that it's television that is responsible for everybody's desire to be famous."
- Kelsey Grammer
(Related: Success, Acting, Actor, Desire, Famous, Television)
"Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is."
- Hugh Grant
(Related: Love, Acting, Actors, Fact, Nonsense, Rest, Want)
"And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It's incredibly, mind numbingly slow."
- Hugh Grant
(Related: Nature, Acting, Film, Mind)
"Anthony Hopkins says you just keep acting. Do it all the time and eventually it will happen. He got his break, after all, by taking a role nobody else wanted. A cannibal!"
- Richard E. Grant
(Related: Time, Acting, Will)
"I'm not interested in becoming a bigger star, I'm not interested in being the wealthiest guy in the world. I'm doing fine, I love acting, and I want to do it for the rest of my life."
- Seth Green
(Related: Life, Love, Acting, Being, Rest, Want, World)
"Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people."
- Harold H. Greene
(Related: People, Acting, Name, World)
"In the end, it's acting, it's not real. But every director will tell you that you have to create conditions that create tension, because tension is what makes drama feel real."
- Paul Greengrass
(Related: Acting, Drama, End, Tension, Will)
"Now supposing I had the part of a young woman to give out, one that wanted some excellent acting. If I were to go to the stage for my actress I would have to take a matured woman, one who would act splendidly, but who would look too old for the requirements."
- D. W. Griffith
(Related: Act, Acting, Now, Old, Woman)
"People who think radio acting is easy are wrong, because you got nothing to work with but your voice."
- Melanie Griffith
(Related: Work, People, Acting, Nothing, Voice, Wrong)
"I always wanted to go into acting."
- Rupert Grint
(Related: Acting)
"Strive to be authentic all the time. That's sort of my philosophy on life, which applies to acting."
- Paul Guilfoyle
(Related: Life, Time, Acting, Philosophy)
"The worst acting is about imitation."
- Paul Guilfoyle
(Related: Acting, Imitation)
"Acting is constant exploration."
- Paul Guilfoyle
(Related: Acting, Exploration)
"My acting ability would have sent me back to the post office. It was my singing that got me jobs. Ironically, now, people think of me as an actor and don't know me much as a singer."
- Robert Guillaume
(Related: People, Ability, Acting, Actor, Jobs, Now, Office, Post, Singing)
"On a film, I was always acting. I was either changing my clothes really quickly and wiping off the lipstick and putting on the other lipstick and then working constantly, constantly."
- Maggie Gyllenhaal
(Related: Acting, Clothes, Film)
"It was a wonderful experience to work with Sylvia. She pushed me to be more powerful with my acting, and she told me scores of the most incredible stories I've ever heard. She is amazing."
- Lukas Haas
(Related: Experience, Work, Acting)
"A threatened nation can react to uncertain dangers solely through administrative channels, to the truly embarrassing situation of perhaps overreacting."
- Jurgen Habermas
(Related: Nation)
"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
(Related: Acting, Theatre)
"I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing."
- Jessica Hahn
(Related: Love, Act, Acting, Saying)
"Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea."
- Robert Half
(Related: Idea, Acting)
"I'd always enjoyed acting, but modeling was so time-consuming - and lucrative - that I didn't pursue it."
- Jerry Hall
(Related: Time, Acting)
"It's interesting to play a role where you don't really have to preoccupy yourself with any need to convince yourself that you're not acting."
- Michael C. Hall
(Related: Acting, Play)
"I think I had a shyness about me, I think I discovered acting as a way to break out of that and as a way of belonging, a sense of being special."
- Michael C. Hall
(Related: Acting, Being, Sense, Shyness)
"I never really considered acting as a career until I moved to New York."
- Michael C. Hall
(Related: Acting, Career)
"Acting in 'Star Wars' I felt like a raisin in a giant fruit salad, and I didn't even know who the cantaloupes were."
- Mark Hamill
(Related: Acting)
"It's not subtle or restrained. It's not any of the things you like to think apply to your acting."
- Margaret Hamilton
(Related: Acting)
"I'm not as focused on my acting career as I have been in the past."
- Harry Hamlin
(Related: Acting, Career, Past)
"Guitar players in the nineties seem to be reacting against the technique oriented eighties."
- Kirk Hammett
(Related: Guitar)
"The plane is simply abstracting the power stored in the wave by a distant gale, and using it to counteract gravity. And if the work be continued long enough, or a multitude of planes be continually drawing on the reservoir of power, the wave must inevitably be flattened."
- Lawrence Hargrave
(Related: Power, Work, Gravity)
"I never was disillusioned with acting because I love acting."
- Woody Harrelson
(Related: Love, Acting)
"One of the first things I learned about acting was, the only person you compete against is yourself."
- Ed Harris
(Related: Acting, First)
"To me acting and singing are worlds apart."
- Emmylou Harris
(Related: Acting, Singing)
"I have to own something before I can say it, and I have to own it before I can sing it as well, emotionally. I only enjoy acting and singing if I am believing what I am doing."
- Gregory Harrison
(Related: Acting, Singing)
"It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue all the time. It's funny that people say it's a departure, because I've been acting since I was a child. I've played three gay roles out of hundreds."
- Randy Harrison
(Related: Funny, Time, People, Acting, Departure, Gay)
"I don't think I'm great at acting. I think I'm great at directing."
- Melissa Joan Hart
(Related: Acting)
"I was 36, and I had decided to quit acting because it was so disappointing."
- Phil Hartman
(Related: Acting)
"I don't know if I'm going to do any more acting. It's a great job, you know? Make a movie? Why not?"
- Colleen Haskell
(Related: Acting, Job)
"My father was a writer and an acting teacher."
- Noah Hathaway
(Related: Father, Acting, Writer)
"I hate acting when I see it. I don't want to feel it, I don't want to see it, I want to be taken away with the story - I don't want the actor's ego in front of me. That's what I try to live when I do the work."
- Rutger Hauer
(Related: Work, Acting, Actor, Ego, Hate, Want)
"Producing is hell, writing is frustrating, acting is really satisfying, directing is heaven."
- Salma Hayek
(Related: Acting, Heaven, Hell, Writing)
"If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Acting, Chance, Will)
"Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Acting, Man)
"Louis B. Mayer once looked at me and said, 'You will never get the girl at the end'. So I worked on my acting."
- Van Heflin
(Related: Acting, End, Will)
"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap."
- Cynthia Heimel
(Related: Acting, Being, Doubt, Earth, Fool, Hell)
"I was taken by the romanticism of being thought of as an adult and living in a world that was completely new to me. I fell in love with acting then."
- Mariel Hemingway
(Related: Love, Thought, Acting, Being, Living, World)
"When child actors act well they're just reacting to situations, and they're acting very real because their life experience is so short; there's no history to fall back on."
- Mariel Hemingway
(Related: Experience, History, Life, Act, Acting, Actors)
"I loved acting when I was doing it, but getting the jobs I didn't understand because I'd never had to do it. That was a difficult lesson for me. It was very humbling and very bizarre."
- Mariel Hemingway
(Related: Acting, Bizarre, Jobs)
"Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was kind of bereft and she put me in an acting class."
- Beth Henley
(Related: Acting, Class, School)
"What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn't you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed."
- Beth Henley
(Related: Acting, Class, Day)
"Silence and solitude are more distracting to me than chatter and commotion."
- Marilu Henner
(Related: Silence, Solitude)
"You know something, if you're not acting, you're not an actor - you've gotta work. No way around it."
- Lance Henriksen
(Related: Work, Acting, Actor)
"The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say, 'This is my need; this is what's going to get me further; this is what's going to be alive. I don't ever say, 'Do you mind if...?' I just come in and do it."
- Lance Henriksen
(Related: Acting, Hate, Mind, Want)
"I was very interested in theatre, mostly in stage design. I did a little bit of acting."
- Jim Henson
(Related: Design, Acting, Theatre)
"I think I have been very lucky as far as my acting career goes."
- Natasha Henstridge
(Related: Acting, Career)
"I guess Species was a movie made for me and hence I bagged the role. In fact even when acting, I never thought the outcome would be so good which I think it was! The entire role was a challenge. I was to be this strange yet sexy thing which was challenging!"
- Natasha Henstridge
(Related: Thought, Acting, Challenge, Fact)
"Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Time, Selling, Acting, Profession)
"Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Temple, Acting, Gifts)
"Acting is the perfect idiot's profession."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Acting, Profession)
"Our leaders are acting like lemmings."
- Jack Herer
(Related: Acting, Leaders)
"Acting is really not what I'm interested in. I'm not an aspiring actor and you should be able to tell."
- Keith Hernandez
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"Ever since I was a very little girl, I've dreamed of acting."
- Eva Herzigova
(Related: Acting)
"America is always attracting people, from all over the earth."
- John Hickenlooper
(Related: People, America, Earth)
"Now that I'm more mature, in a funny way, I can even appreciate that I've bad to become more aware of my body. Since I've chosen acting as my career, I have to keep my weight down anyway-I've been used to it for years, so it's no problem. And there's nothing I can't do."
- Dana Hill
(Related: Funny, Acting, Body, Career, Nothing, Now, Weight, Years)
"My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college."
- Dana Hill
(Related: Love, Mother, Acting, Brothers, Career, College, Perspective)
"If one thing that bothers me about acting, it's that there's no clear-cut number one. The closest you can get is winning an Academy Award, and I'm going to work on that if it takes me the next 50 years. To my peers, it will mean that I'm the best!"
- Dana Hill
(Related: Work, Winning, Acting, Will, Years)
"So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy."
- Charles Hodge
(Related: People, Authority, Constitution, Rules)
"So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me."
- Dustin Hoffman
(Related: Acting, Army, College, First, Parents)
"I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got."
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
(Related: Business, Acting, Community, Now, Wrong)
"My love for the theater has always been a priority. That hasn't changed. I got into acting that way. The film work that came up was really a surprise."
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
(Related: Love, Work, Acting, Film, Theater)
"I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am."
- Judy Holliday
(Related: Acting, Chance, Study, Writing)
"It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting."
- Judy Holliday
(Related: Acting, First)
"Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously."
- Judy Holliday
(Related: People, Acting, Expression)
"Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script."
- Anthony Hopkins
(Related: Time, Acting)
"I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it."
- Anthony Hopkins
(Related: Acting)
"My earliest acting memory is making up a play for my mom and dad called The Lonesome Baby. I have no idea what The Lonesome Baby was about. I just remember the title. But I'm sure it was an epic."
- Jane Horrocks
(Related: Dad, Mom, Idea, Acting, Baby, Memory, Play)
"Desperation is like stealing from the Mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention."
- Douglas Horton
(Related: Attention, Chance, Desperation, Wrong)
"Buckwheat may be planted later than any similar crop, and often does well on old meadows or waste land that can be broken after the more exacting crops are planted."
- David F. Houston
(Related: Land, May, Old, Waste)
"I don't have any love for this business or the game or for acting. This is my day job."
- Terrence Howard
(Related: Business, Love, Acting, Day, Job)
"We on our part will stick to our independent foreign policy of peace, acting forever as a strong defender of world peace and a persistent proponent of common development."
- Jinato Hu
(Related: Peace, Policy, Development, Acting, Foreign policy, Will, World)
"It's fun being able to suit up and go and kick butt and not have to worry about memorizing dialogue. It's a whole different way of acting because you're not depending on the words at all, you're really depending on everything else that you have."
- Kelly Hu
(Related: Acting, Being, Fun, Words, Worry)
"My first real kiss came when I was 10, and it was in an acting class. I had to do a scene from a movie where someone gets kissed under a tree, and I did not want to do it! But my acting partner wanted me to feel comfortable, so he bought a picnic basket with all these snacks. He made such an effort - and it was cute."
- Vanessa Hudgens
(Related: Kiss, Acting, Class, Cute, Effort, First, Want)
"In a work capacity I'm only interested in acting and producing."
- Charlie Hunnam
(Related: Work, Acting)
"I think it's because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Colour is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn't necessarily reach the heart."
- Kim Hunter
(Related: Heart, Emotions, Eye)
"Acting is a way of living out one's insanity."
- Isabelle Huppert
(Related: Acting, Insanity, Living)
"Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting."
- John Hurt
(Related: Business, People, Acting)
"My parents felt that acting was far too insecure. Don't ask me what made them think that painting would be more secure."
- John Hurt
(Related: Acting, Painting, Parents)
"I remember once when I told Lindsay Anderson at a party that acting was just a sophisticated way of playing cowboys and Indians he almost had a fit."
- John Hurt
(Related: Acting, Cowboys, Party)
"It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it."
- William Hurt
(Related: Life, People, Acting, Light, Rest, Trying)
"I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people."
- William Hurt
(Related: People, Acting, Help)
"I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process."
- William Hurt
(Related: Love, Acting)
"But I'm not objective when I'm acting."
- Laura Innes
(Related: Acting)
"Because modeling is lucrative, I'm able to save up and be more particular about the acting roles I take."
- Kathy Ireland
(Related: Acting)
"An acting assistant stage manager in a theater in Canterbury, a rep theater. A small wage but just enough to get by on, and I made props and I walked on, and I changed scenery, and I realized that I just loved it."
- Jeremy Irons
(Related: Manager, Acting, Theater, Wage)
"I took acting lessons when I was 19, 20, and I had my writing."
- Michael Ironside
(Related: Acting, Writing)
"Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for."
- Washington Irving
(Related: Hope, Acting, Being, Fulfillment)
"It dawned on me that acting was what I wanted to do with my life. Nothing had ever touched my heart like acting did."
- Hugh Jackman
(Related: Life, Heart, Acting, Nothing)
"Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant."
- Glenda Jackson
(Related: Thought, Acting, Forget, Learning, Sound)
"I've never been in the music industry, only acting."
- Victoria Jackson
(Related: Music, Acting)
"I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought, 'Well if acting doesn't work for him, he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately, the acting worked out."
- Derek Jacobi
(Related: History, Work, Thought, Acting, Parents, University)
"I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting."
- Jim Jarmusch
(Related: Character, Acting, Actors, Film, Trying, Will)
"The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands."
- Maria Jeritza
(Related: Acting, Lies, Opera, Singing)
"You're in this constant state of flux and transition, as if you had jet lag all the time. The acting part of it is easy. It's all the other things that come with it that are a bit difficult."
- Don Johnson
(Related: Time, Acting, State)
"Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter."
- Chuck Jones
(Related: Art, Comedy, Laughter)
"When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that."
- James Earl Jones
(Related: History, Dance, Acting, American, Army, Speech, Theater, Years)
"So I was determined to use my last two years in college doing something I thought I would enjoy, which was acting. And it was probably because there was girls over in the drama school too, you know?"
- James Earl Jones
(Related: Thought, Acting, College, Drama, Girls, School, Years)
"Acting is not about anything romantic, not even fantasy, although you do create fantasy."
- James Earl Jones
(Related: Acting, Fantasy, Romantic)
"Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun."
- Tommy Lee Jones
(Related: Work, Acting, Fun, Hard work)
"As athletes, we're used to reacting quickly. Here, it's 'come, stop, come, stop.' There's a lot of downtime. That's the toughest part of the day."
- Michael Jordan
(Related: Athletes, Day)
"I didn't want to get into acting. I was very happy doing MTV, it took up my time, I was content."
- Nafisa Joseph
(Related: Time, Acting, Content, Want)
"Well, the fact is that one imagination is critically important, and if you have had your imagination stimulated by what is basically a variety of subjects, you are much more amenable to accepting, to understanding and interacting with the realities of the world."
- Ashley Judd
(Related: Imagination, Fact, Understanding, Variety, World)
"Instead of acting in court, I decided to act onstage."
- Raul Julia
(Related: Act, Acting, Court)
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves."
- Carl Jung
(Related: Acting, Creation, Instinct, Intellect, Mind, Necessity, Play)
"I went whole hog at the actor's lifestyle - really embraced it. I had by then known how much I loved acting already, because I discovered acting from a teacher in the seminary - that's the first place I ever did it, in the seminary."
- Peter Jurasik
(Related: Acting, Actor, First)
"I was at an acting academy for seven years prior to the trial."
- Kato Kaelin
(Related: Acting, Years)
"Acting is pretty much my whole life."
- Carol Kane
(Related: Life, Acting, Pretty)
"Because of my background in theater and radio acting, I knew that I could make a living as an actor."
- Casey Kasem
(Related: Acting, Actor, Living, Theater)
"I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Experience, Acting, Now)
"Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Poetry, Acting, Direction, Prose)
"Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?"
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Acting, Approval, Artist, Quick)
"I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age."
- Monica Keena
(Related: Age, People, Acting, World)
"The character I play in Star Quality says acting is the be-all and end-all of her life. I'm not like that. I do enjoy working and I give every job my best shot but I never feel, What on Earth am I going to do now?"
- Penelope Keith
(Related: Life, Quality, Character, Acting, Earth, End, Job, Now, Play)
"The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other."
- Kevin Kelly
(Related: Environment, Understanding)
"I feel that the year ahead for me will be full of two of my favorite things: dance and acting."
- William Kempe
(Related: Dance, Acting, Favorite, Will)
"Acting's fun, but life's more important."
- Margot Kidder
(Related: Life, Acting, Fun)
"I love acting, but it's much more fun taking the kids to the zoo."
- Nicole Kidman
(Related: Love, Acting, Fun, Kids)
"I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are preceving you."
- Nicole Kidman
(Related: Love, People, Acting, Identity, Interest, Internet, Press)
"Most of us don't spend any time knowing ourselves. We just keep reacting."
- Jewel Kilcher
(Related: Time)
"Acting is very immediate."
- Val Kilmer
(Related: Acting)
"Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Acting, Magic)
"I'm very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Love, Acting, Fact)
"The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!"
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Acting)
"There's so much crap talked about acting."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Acting)
"When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Acting)
"I don't honestly think people know what acting is."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: People, Acting)
"I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Acting, Danger)
"I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: People, Acting, Invention)
"The ultimate acting is to destroy yourself."
- Klaus Kinski
(Related: Acting)
"My point is that, over the years, I've taught five thousand people acting and lately I have a lot of energy on these kids, having the same break I had as a high school girl."
- Sally Kirkland
(Related: People, Acting, Energy, Kids, School, Years)
"But I think the other is a little more like bullfighting, a little more daring and although I appreciate good acting and I liked being versatile my whole career, it kept me working."
- Robert Klein
(Related: Acting, Being, Career)
"Olivia Newton-John was our first choice to play Sandy, but she was nervous about acting, whether she would feel comfortable with us and could pull it off at all."
- Randal Kleiser
(Related: Acting, Choice, First, Play)
"For 50 years, acting was the reason I got up in the morning."
- Jack Klugman
(Related: Acting, Reason, Years)
"A little acting debut in Spin City, with Michael J. Fox, which opened up a whole new door for me."
- Heidi Klum
(Related: Acting)
"I'm not done with acting but do find my hands full with my current responsibilities. Soon, sometime soon."
- Christopher Knight
(Related: Acting)
"My acting career helped pull me through the rough times."
- Shirley Knight
(Related: Acting, Career)
"I had to study acting to basically educate myself."
- Boris Kodjoe
(Related: Acting, Study)
"Normally, if you go through a game without attracting attention, you are doing a hell of a job."
- Jerry Kramer
(Related: Attention, Hell, Job)
"Acting is all about truth and honesty, and the sensitivity that's capable of transporting you."
- Thomas Kretschmann
(Related: Truth, Honesty, Acting, Sensitivity)
"I still have agents in France, Los Angeles and Amsterdam who call and suggest parts. I'd love to keep on doing both painting and acting until the end of my days."
- Sylvia Kristel
(Related: Love, Acting, End, France, Painting)
"My parents went crazy when they found out that I had gotten the part in Conversations With My Father! I'd never given acting a thought. They were proud of me and very encouraging."
- David Krumholtz
(Related: Thought, Encouraging, Acting, Parents)
"To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless."
- Mike Krzyzewski
(Related: Beauty, Teamwork, Acting)
"I actually made an effort to reject acting, to shove it out of my body, because I didn't want my kids to have an actress as a mother-to have, like, a silly person."
- Lisa Kudrow
(Related: Mother, Acting, Body, Effort, Kids, Silly, Want)
"I hope to continue building my acting career and work more on projects that fulfill my artistic thirst."
- Karolina Kurkova
(Related: Work, Hope, Acting, Building, Career, Projects)
"My acting coach makes the impossible accessible."
- Karolina Kurkova
(Related: Acting, Coach)
"Working with a great director is like getting a master class in acting."
- Swoosie Kurtz
(Related: Acting, Class)
"But this is a little different. This is the adult acting. This is a different crowd. It's more work and more good work. That's it. People will have their opinion regardless."
- Shia LaBeouf
(Related: Work, People, Acting, Opinion, Will)
"First I would probably place men at the bottom of the food chain. On a grander scale, I would say they're reacting to change. Feminism has got to be part of that."
- Neil LaBute
(Related: Food, Men, Change, Feminism, First)
"Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me."
- Alan Ladd
(Related: Life, Act, Acting)
"I learned more about acting from George Stevens in a few months than I had in my entire life up until then."
- Alan Ladd
(Related: Life, Acting, Months)
"A producer has to know all about everything from set-building to costumes to acting."
- Alan Ladd
(Related: Acting)
"I wouldn't say that I'm very similar to the character of Nathan at all. Both of us have had very different upbringings and backgrounds. I have a competitive nature like the character of Nathan. That's really easy to draw from when I'm acting; that's probably the biggest similarity."
- James Lafferty
(Related: Nature, Character, Acting)
"When I was first starting out, if you were acting on television, it was a real stigma."
- Christine Lahti
(Related: Acting, First, Television)
"I am an actress and acting is my passion... period!"
- Christine Lahti
(Related: Acting, Passion)
"What's the difference between tough love and acting like a jerk?"
- Ricki Lake
(Related: Love, Acting, Difference)
"True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one's true character, to be altogether one's self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion."
- Corliss Lamont
(Related: Character, Acting, Freedom, Self)
"It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality."
- Christian Lous Lange
(Related: Intelligence, Morality, People, Acting, Psychology, Spiritual)
"One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story."
- Jessica Lange
(Related: Love, Acting)
"To stay interested in acting, I have to keep trying stuff I've never done before."
- Jessica Lange
(Related: Acting, Trying)
"I suddenly discovered that acting made girls notice me."
- Ted Lange
(Related: Acting, Girls)
"But when I was seven or eight, I did my first little piece of acting."
- Frank Langella
(Related: Acting, First)
"You start acting in spite of your neuroses, not because of them."
- Frank Langella
(Related: Acting)
"There is no right in acting."
- Frank Langella
(Related: Acting, Right)
"It's a living, breathing thing, acting."
- Frank Langella
(Related: Acting, Living)
"I found my interest lapse in both acting and racing."
- Lillie Langtry
(Related: Acting, Interest, Racing)
"Believe me, when an actress is told that her very name is synonymous with bad acting, she's had it."
- Piper Laurie
(Related: Acting, Name)
"I dropped the script in the fireplace, called my agent and said, they can jail me, sue me, but I'm never acting again, unless I can do something worthwhile."
- Piper Laurie
(Related: Acting)
"It was always acting, singing and dancing that I loved."
- Linda Lavin
(Related: Acting, Dancing, Singing)
"Faith is not a notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting or magnetic desire of Christ, which as it proceeds from a seed of the divine nature in us, so it attracts and unites with its like."
- William Law
(Related: Faith, Nature, Christ, Desire, Hunger)
"It is so much more difficult to live with one's body than with one's soul. One's body is so much more exacting: what it won't have it won't have, and nothing can make bitter into sweet."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Soul, Body, Nothing)
"Even as far back as when I started acting at 14, I know I've never considered failure."
- Jennifer Lawrence
(Related: Failure, Acting)
"I don't know if this is why everything has worked so well and I'm not sure I'd recommend this kind of thinking to anyone else, but I've always known I'd be successful in acting. I have certainly worked for it."
- Jennifer Lawrence
(Related: Successful, Acting, Thinking)
"Hollywood is fickle; your career can end pretty fast. If the acting jobs dry up, you have to have something to fall back on. In fact, that would be my advice to kids interested in acting - make sure you get an education too."
- Matthew Lawrence
(Related: Education, Acting, Advice, Career, End, Fact, Hollywood, Jobs, Kids, Pretty)
"You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera."
- Nicholas Lea
(Related: Acting, Class, Want)
"And I've been lucky in that I haven't had another job besides acting in the last five years."
- Nicholas Lea
(Related: Acting, Job, Years)
"When I was younger and studying acting, I never ever saw myself in the sitcom world; it was drama that really turned me on and still does."
- Matt LeBlanc
(Related: Acting, Drama, World)
"This whole acting thing was always just for me and was always an absolute shot in the dark. If it didn't pan out, I had my hammer and tool belt, banging nails again tomorrow if I had to."
- Matt LeBlanc
(Related: Acting, Tomorrow)
"Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting."
- Ang Lee
(Related: Acting, Actors, Careers, Risk, Stars)
"If this whole acting thing doesn't work out, I'll just get a talk show."
- Rachael Leigh
(Related: Work, Acting, Talk)
"I don't know what that Method is. Acting is life, to me, and should be."
- Vivien Leigh
(Related: Life, Acting)
"People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap."
- Vivien Leigh
(Related: Beauty, People, Act, Acting, Care)
"An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes."
- Melissa Leo
(Related: Love, Acting, Actor, Actors, England, Play, School)
"That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it."
- Melissa Leo
(Related: Actor)
"Really it was the first time in my life that I recognised that acting is, I'm just going to say it, I am an artist, I have to do this, I have to do this."
- Tea Leoni
(Related: Life, Time, Acting, Artist, First)
"Acting doesn't feel good. It's not comfortable to feel all this stuff, it's not."
- Tea Leoni
(Related: Acting)
"Actually, the year anniversary of what you just heard, my son Grahame and I are going to be in a play together, and I'm acting for the first time in front of an audience that doesn't consist of a high school drama class."
- Phil Lesh
(Related: Time, Son, Acting, Class, Drama, First, Play, School)
"This acting was very hard work."
- Jack Levine
(Related: Work, Acting, Hard work)
"I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs."
- Barry Levinson
(Related: Work, Acting, School, Years)
"Zhang is a friend of mine: he said forget about acting and just do normal things in the movie."
- Jet Li
(Related: Friend, Acting, Forget)
"I had heard about how people struggle and how hard it is to get into acting. But I did not care because it's something I love."
- Bai Ling
(Related: Love, People, Acting, Care, Struggle)
"Acting is easier than skating in a way and harder in other aspects. In skating, you get one chance, and with acting you get to do it over and over."
- Tara Lipinski
(Related: Acting, Chance)
"The foundation for film acting is stage acting."
- James Lipton
(Related: Acting, Film)
"The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive."
- James Lipton
(Related: Acting, Difference, Film, Theater)
"If it's well written and well directed and you've got good actors to work with, acting is easy. But making sure all the ducks are in a row is the hard part. It's very rare."
- John Lithgow
(Related: Work, Acting, Actors)
"I am attracting a new audience now, one that is more open and more spiritually inclined."
- Kenny Loggins
(Related: Now, Open)
"Real freedom is creative, proactive, and will take me into new territories. I am not free if my freedom is predicated on reacting to my past."
- Kenny Loggins
(Related: Freedom, Past, Will)
"You shouldn't have to give things up for someone. If you love them someone, you should love them for everything they do and all that they are. I love acting and I wouldn't give it up for anything, and I don't know anyone in my life who would ask me to give it up."
- Lindsay Lohan
(Related: Life, Love, Acting)
"I really enjoy singing and I really enjoy acting, but singing I've been doing since I was really young."
- Lindsay Lohan
(Related: Acting, Singing)
"I've always loved acting with adults versus like the whole High School feel."
- Alison Lohman
(Related: Acting, School)
"I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying."
- Kristanna Loken
(Related: Acting, Job, Years)
"Right now music is more my outlet than acting, but I'm waiting for that one satisfying role."
- Jeremy London
(Related: Music, Acting, Now, Right, Waiting)
"If it's an excellent script, I enjoy it tremendously, the acting part of it."
- Julie London
(Related: Acting)
"The acting was first. As a teenager I was an actress; and then I came back as a singer."
- Julie London
(Related: Acting, First)
"I have a four year old and I'm telling you we did Nickelodeon last night and he embarrassed me. It was like one of those moments when I couldn't believe my kid is acting like this. I just had to just like walk away from him because he was really pushing my buttons."
- Nia Long
(Related: Acting, Moments, Night, Old)
"My acting is still being recognized for the fact that I wasn't nominated."
- Eva Longoria
(Related: Acting, Being, Fact)
"You have to come in and be that character when you walk into the room. That's what one of my first acting teachers taught me. You know, don't go in there being Jennifer and then expect to flip and change, because they're not going to have that imagination."
- Jennifer Lopez
(Related: Imagination, Change, Character, Acting, Being, First, Teachers)
"Acting must be scaled down for the screen. A drawing room is a lot smaller than a theatre auditorium."
- Arthur Lowe
(Related: Acting, Theatre)
"Almost all political campaigns involve falsity and playacting."
- Rich Lowry
"In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Decision, Acting, America, Profession)
"Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Enthusiasm, Acting)
"In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Acting, Career, Law, Medicine, Philosophy)
"I went to college for one semester, and I took every subject I could, and I ended up failing. So I thought to myself, Ever since I was a kid, I've loved expression - and that's when I started thinking about acting."
- Derek Luke
(Related: Thought, Acting, College, Expression, Thinking)
"Acting scares me."
- John Lurie
(Related: Acting)
"I got into the acting business very young."
- James MacArthur
(Related: Business, Acting)
"But it's hard to sustain a successful acting career today."
- James MacArthur
(Related: Successful, Acting, Career, Today)
"I would like to continue making music and acting in projects that give me a lot of satisfaction."
- Alicia Machado
(Related: Music, Acting, Projects, Satisfaction)
"So I find the fascination, the love, the incredible skill and everything to do with acting, writing plays, and doing them, just darling. Lovely. I love actors."
- Patrick Macnee
(Related: Love, Acting, Actors, Skill, Writing)
"I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you're an actor, you know, don't really need to learn how to do it."
- Patrick Macnee
(Related: Acting, Actor, Months, School)
"It doesn't work that way, you know, because most parts that you think you'd do well, most other people don't. So they offer you something - The Avengers is a good example... I fitted into that because I came from that sort of background. It's not even acting."
- Patrick Macnee
(Related: Work, People, Acting, Example)
"Acting and modeling have nothing to do with each other."
- Elle Macpherson
(Related: Acting, Nothing)
"Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one."
- Michael Madsen
(Related: Acting, Kids)
"Acting is a tough business, and the percentage of people who make it is very low - it's about 1 percent."
- Lee Majors
(Related: Business, People, Acting)
"For a child actor, it's a matter of listening, reacting, and being able to put yourself in a new place without being scared."
- Jena Malone
(Related: Actor, Being, Listening)
"A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific."
- Nick Mancuso
(Related: Friend, Acting, Actors, Film, Hollywood, Job, Old)
"Everyone's just extracting meaning and feeling and emotion from almost every aspect of music, and I think that for me, it's a huge antidote to that to have a concept album."
- Aimee Mann
(Related: Music, Emotion, Feeling, Meaning)
"A 65-ft.-wide screen and 500 people reacting to the movie, there is nothing like that experience."
- Michael Mann
(Related: Experience, People, Nothing)
"There's really nothing else I'm going to do with my life. I'd be useless if I weren't singing or acting."
- Taryn Manning
(Related: Life, Acting, Nothing, Singing)
"Even though it seems like there are a lot of parts, there is really tons of downtime in the acting world."
- Taryn Manning
(Related: Acting, World)
"And because performing for a game involves real acting. The way they create a game is very similar now to how they create a film. I've always wanted to stretch my acting skills, and the timing being what it is, I couldn't say no."
- Josie Maran
(Related: Acting, Being, Film, Now)
"Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Acting, English, Language)
"Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone."
- Ferdinand Marcos
(Related: Leadership, Act, Acting, Loneliness)
"When you're modeling you're actually acting for the camera and the photographer. It's more fun, too because there are no lines to memorize."
- Cindy Margolis
(Related: Acting, Fun)
"The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character."
- Eddie Marsan
(Related: Character, Thoughts, Acting)
"There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination."
- Eddie Marsan
(Related: Imagination, Work, Acting, Mystery, Questions)
"The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready."
- Steve Martin
(Related: Acting, Actor, First, Joy, Writing)
"The big difference with Juliette and the others in that film is that she goes beyond acting."
- Olivier Martinez
(Related: Acting, Difference, Film)
"Some stars like to hide behind the whole idea of acting. But really good actors are not hiding at all. They're not afraid to be disliked, to be a little unsavoury."
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(Related: Idea, Acting, Actors, Stars)
"Suddenly, I realised: this was what I wanted to do. I didn't know how to do it; I just knew acting felt right."
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(Related: Acting, Right)
"I used to go home at night and just shake, because I had no idea that's what acting was gonna be."
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(Related: Home, Idea, Acting, Night)
"I do need to be told when I'm going wrong. No one's acting can be an exact, 100 percent science."
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(Related: Science, Acting, Wrong)
"As a measure of acting skills, film can be very deceptive."
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
(Related: Acting, Film, Measure)
"If you've ever been around a group of actors, you've noticed, no doubt, that they can talk of nothing else under the sun but acting. It's exactly the same way with baseball players. Your heart must be in your work."
- Christy Mathewson
(Related: Work, Heart, Acting, Actors, Baseball, Doubt, Nothing, Sun, Talk)
"I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them."
- Armistead Maupin
(Related: Age, People, Children, Gay)
"The one thing that's closest to my story is the thing about trying out for the juvenile delinquent role and getting it. That was the start of my acting career... which I've resumed, by the way."
- Paul Mazursky
(Related: Acting, Career, Trying)
"I didn't want to be famous. I just wanted to earn enough money to have a nice life and enjoy acting."
- David McCallum
(Related: Life, Money, Acting, Famous, Want)
"One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career."
- Mercedes McCambridge
(Related: Acting, Career)
"Acting isn't a singular profession, it is a collaborate profession."
- Edie McClurg
(Related: Acting, Profession)
"That first year at Universal was a big blur and, naturally, I thought they were wasting me. I didn't realize at the time that I was learning my craft and acting more easily in front of the camera."
- Kent McCord
(Related: Time, Thought, Acting, First, Learning)
"There's only two givens with choosing acting as a profession: one is you will always be unemployed, always, and it doesn't matter how much money you make, you're still always going to be unemployed; and that you have no power."
- Frances McDormand
(Related: Money, Power, Acting, Will)
"I enjoyed being in movies when I was a boy. As a child you're not acting - you believe."
- Roddy McDowall
(Related: Movies, Acting, Being)
"To me, acting is acting... I'd be happy working on a street corner in a mime troupe."
- Kelly McGillis
(Related: Acting)
"At school there was no acting to be had other than school plays which I did now and again."
- Ewan McGregor
(Related: Acting, Now, School)
"From there I did a one year theatre acting course in Fife, and then three years of drama school in London."
- Ewan McGregor
(Related: Acting, Drama, London, School, Theatre, Years)
"I love acting and don't find it to be very hard. I recognize when I've nailed it, and I can be very proud of myself."
- Ewan McGregor
(Related: Love, Acting)
"When you do a lot of acting your entire life, you see the entire set from one point of view. To have a chance to step back and pull it all together is really exciting. You want to do it all; you want to have a hand in everything."
- Danica McKellar
(Related: Life, Acting, Chance, Want)
"Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting."
- Ian McKellen
(Related: Acting, Audiences, Play, Popular, Production, Theater, Want)
"I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.'"
- Ian Mckellen
(Related: Act, Acting, Drama, Saying, School, Theories, Training)
"I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly."
- Ian Mckellen
(Related: Acting, Being, Fact, Play, Shakespeare)
"Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one."
- Ian Mckellen
(Related: People, Idea, Acting, Actor, Being, Fact)
"Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different."
- Ian Mckellen
(Related: Experience, Character, Acting, Personality)
"I think they can co-exist. You don't have to put one down for another. I've been bitten by the acting bug, and where it takes me, it won't take away from the music."
- Brian McKnight
(Related: Music, Acting)
"Unless it's done superbly, as in the Japanese film Gate of Hell, color can be a very distracting element."
- Norman McLaren
(Related: Film, Hell)
"I'm not sure that acting is something for a grown man to be doing."
- Steve McQueen
(Related: Acting, Man)
"I always think of the character as being me. But me wearing a 'coat', which may be a different way of speaking, moving or regarding other people. To me, acting is pretending, just like kids playing, only you pretend as if it were really, really real."
- Fred Melamed
(Related: People, Character, Acting, Being, Kids, May)
"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
(Related: Possibility, Acting, Theatre)
"I've got the best of all worlds. It's every actor's dream to wake up in New York City and go to an acting job rather than to a restaurant to wash dirty dishes. And I live so close to the studios that I ride my bike to work."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Work, Dream, Acting, Actor, Job)
"I didn't get into acting to be a public service announcer or an advocate and yet, by virtue of this show and how we handle the subject matter that we've been given, that's kind of how it's evolved in certain ways."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Virtue, Acting, Public, Service)
"I took acting classes in college, and once I graduated, I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent, and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys, which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Movies, Acting, Boys, College, First, Television, Years)
"I really love to act; I love everything about it. I've never had this addiction to being known. I mean, sure, if you go into acting, there's part of you that is saying, 'I want attention' but I was brought up to work to deserve attention, and it is the work, not the trappings that are important."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Love, Work, Act, Acting, Addiction, Attention, Being, Saying, Want)
"So most of my acting experience came in college when I was living away from them. I acted in various independent films, and I got some commercial work and stuff like that."
- Maria Menounos
(Related: Experience, Work, Acting, College, Living)
"I'm really excited, because the character, Jules, is a really awesome character. I'm really excited to be playing her, and overall, I'm really excited to be getting back to my acting roots."
- Maria Menounos
(Related: Character, Acting)
"I have no political aspirations, although a lot of people believe that politics and acting go hand in hand."
- Rita Mero
(Related: Politics, People, Acting, Aspirations)
"At this point I have no interest in returning to wrestling. I am pursuing my acting career. But I never say never. I enjoyed the three years I was in the wrestling industry."
- Rita Mero
(Related: Acting, Career, Interest, Wrestling, Years)
"Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to light, but by reacting to a kind of a chill from within the marrow of your own life."
- Thomas Merton
(Related: Death, Life, Eyes, Light)
"Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference."
- Vic Mignogna
(Related: Acting, Difference, Houston)
"I moved here to California when I was 13 to pursue my acting career."
- Christina Milian
(Related: Acting, Career)
"Today, currently, business owners can go out and find out if the person they are hiring is eligible to work here or if they are not. We need to think about how we are impacting workers."
- Gary Miller
(Related: Business, Work, Hiring, Today, Workers)
"It was just expected that I would go to college. Both my parents are teachers and they tolerated acting, but I was going to go to a school of quality or bust. Which made my downshifting back to acting afterward a little difficult."
- Wentworth Miller
(Related: Quality, Acting, College, Parents, School, Teachers)
"There's so much we can't express in our day-to-day interaction with people because it's considered inappropriate. And acting is all about being inappropriate."
- Wentworth Miller
(Related: People, Acting, Being, Day)
"When I got to college, acting suddenly seemed like a very risky proposition and all my friends were going to law school or med school or Wall Street."
- Wentworth Miller
(Related: Acting, College, Friends, Law, School)
"You have to love what you do, and you have to need it like you need air. And there's nothing else that would give me the same degree of satisfaction as acting, which is why I can't walk away from it."
- Wentworth Miller
(Related: Love, Acting, Nothing, Satisfaction)
"And what I liked the most about any project was that when it was good, you had a bunch of people trying to accomplish something together who were all acting together as one - that's the most exciting time for me."
- Liza Minelli
(Related: Time, People, Acting, Project, Trying)
"Kylie and I were both taking piano lessons at the time and didn't think of acting. A friend rang mum up and said, 'How about bringing Kylie and Danielle in because they might be right for the part?'"
- Dannii Minogue
(Related: Time, Friend, Acting, Right)
"I had an acting coach while I was doing the show and every week I could see my work improving. I really liked working on the show because I was learning new things every day."
- Dannii Minogue
(Related: Work, Acting, Coach, Day, Learning)
"Still, it's tough trying to combine my acting career with my college career."
- Beverley Mitchell
(Related: Acting, Career, College, Trying)
"This city can be kind of brutal, so you see your dreams from every different angle, but ultimately it's about acting and if you enjoy acting, you will always enjoy acting."
- Radha Mitchell
(Related: Dreams, Acting, Will)
"My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too."
- Katherine Moennig
(Related: Time, People, Friend, Acting, Growing up, Houses, Play)
"I've been acting for 25 years, living out of suitcases on theater tours or film locations."
- Alfred Molina
(Related: Acting, Film, Living, Theater, Years)
"Because it was the original 4 guys, and the dynamic of those 4 guys interacting together that had the power."
- Ronnie Montrose
(Related: Power)
"Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller."
- Frederica Montseny
(Related: Authority)
"Anything I learned about the fine art of acting I learned from Hugo."
- Cleo Moore
(Related: Art, Acting)
"We made one film called Thy Neighbor's Wife in which I got flogged at the public whipping post for adultery. I did my best acting in that film, I guess."
- Cleo Moore
(Related: Wife, Acting, Adultery, Film, Post, Public)
"Baseball player. Yeah, that was my dream before acting, or alongside acting."
- Shemar Moore
(Related: Dream, Acting, Baseball)
"When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear."
- Jeanne Moreau
(Related: Fear, Acting, Fire)
"I was born first to music. But I went into acting because my father knew so much about music he intimidated me. So, I picked an art form, he knew nothing about. So I could be my own man."
- Michael Moriarty
(Related: Art, Music, Father, Acting, First, Man, Nothing)
"In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not."
- Samuel E. Morison
(Related: Design, History, Values, Acting, Gold, Judgment)
"Everything I thought about acting and having a movie career has changed from what I thought when I started."
- Rebecca De Mornay
(Related: Thought, Acting, Career)
"I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination."
- Rebecca De Mornay
(Related: Acting, Healing, Will, Wounds)
"I do believe that the United Nations needs to have more exacting, more enhanced professional standards for the military peacekeepers that are deployed."
- Alex Morrison
(Related: Military, Nations, Needs, United)
"I'm acting for the pleasure of it."
- David Morse
(Related: Acting, Pleasure)
"With Sean Penn, he wants to be surprised. He doesn't necessarily want what he's written, although we'll do what he's written. He likes the danger of acting."
- David Morse
(Related: Acting, Danger, Want)
"By the time I could have played football, I was already into acting and that's what I wanted to do."
- David Morse
(Related: Time, Acting, Football)
"You'd be surprised at how undemanding acting is."
- Martin Mull
(Related: Acting)
"I've never tried to learn the art of acting. I have been in the business for years but I still can't tell what acting is or how it's done."
- Paul Muni
(Related: Art, Business, Acting, Years)
"Acting classes, I guess, are good and I would like to maybe sometime take one. But I would feel like I was learning someone else's technique. I like mine."
- Frankie Muniz
(Related: Acting, Learning)
"When strangers start acting like neighbors... communities are reinvigorated."
- Ralph Nader
(Related: Acting, Neighbors, Strangers)
"That's what I like about acting. When you're preparing for a role, you do your research, and the bonus is you get to learn these skills. Now, it's on to whatever the next thing is I have to learn."
- Parminder Nagra
(Related: Acting, Now, Research)
"I really identified with Jess, because my own dream was acting, which isn't the most conventional profession."
- Parminder Nagra
(Related: Dream, Acting, Profession)
"My family was very supportive of my acting. They didn't really have a choice because I got jobs acting before anyone could really say anything. It paid my way through college and helped my family out."
- Ajay Naidu
(Related: Family, Acting, Choice, College, Jobs)
"My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part."
- Ajay Naidu
(Related: Accident, Acting, First, Job, School)
"Acting school was summer camp, and I needed concentration camp. I had so many different ideas swirling between culture and how to tie things together."
- Ajay Naidu
(Related: Ideas, Acting, Culture, School, Summer)
"We lived and breathed acting."
- David Naughton
(Related: Acting)
"Sincerity and the correct use of the voice are the greatest things in the art of acting."
- Alla Nazimova
(Related: Art, Acting, Sincerity, Voice)
"Well, from an acting point of view, I bear no relation, I don't look like Alfred Kinsey at all, but I thought somewhere in my artist's soul, my actor's soul, I could capture something of the spirit of the man."
- Liam Neeson
(Related: Soul, Thought, Acting, Actor, Artist, Man, Spirit)
"Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning."
- Liam Neeson
(Related: Acting)
"Acting with creatures that aren't there is kind like acting with an actor who refuses to come out of his trailer. You still have to go on and do the scene."
- Liam Neeson
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"I agree with Marjorie Rosen's good psychological analysis of my acting ability."
- Pola Negri
(Related: Ability, Acting)
"It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive."
- Jawaharlal Nehru
(Related: Habit, Acting, Nation)
"When I started in films, it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of acting."
- Sam Neill
(Related: Acting, Career)
"I went to acting school in New York City for two years. I studied with Stella Adler."
- Judd Nelson
(Related: Acting, School, Years)
"My first love is acting on stage. A sitcom is a hybrid of stage and film."
- Judd Nelson
(Related: Love, Acting, Film, First, First love)
"My first paid acting job was a movie called Fandango. It also starred Kevin Costner."
- Judd Nelson
(Related: Acting, First, Job)
"There were time when I was into method acting that I did have moments of residual character emotions, because the method bases your emotional responses as a character on emotional experiences from your real life."
- Corin Nemec
(Related: Life, Time, Character, Acting, Emotions, Moments)
"In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that."
- Corin Nemec
(Related: People, Acting, Want)
"However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community."
- Randy Neugebauer
(Related: Men, War, Women, Community, Congress, Needs, Terror, Veterans)
"I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing."
- Bebe Neuwirth
(Related: Love, Acting, Being, Dancing)
"Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one."
- Paul Newman
(Related: Acting, Profession)
"It's just coincidental that the acting took off first over everything else."
- Nichelle Nichols
(Related: Acting, First)
"Acting is everybody's favorite second job."
- Jack Nicholson
(Related: Acting, Favorite, Job)
"Just let the wardrobe do the acting."
- Jack Nicholson
(Related: Acting)
"One of the things about acting is it allows you to live other people's lives without having to pay the price."
- Robert De Niro
(Related: People, Acting)
"I make two movies a year to take care of the butcher and the baker and the school fees. Then I try to write, but it's not that easy. Acting is what's easy."
- David Niven
(Related: Movies, Acting, Care, School)
"I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate."
- Richard M. Nixon
(Related: Acting, Now, Wrong)
"I jumped into acting because it was fun. It was tougher when I had to take my fun seriously."
- Chris Noth
(Related: Acting, Fun)
"I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful."
- Kim Novak
(Related: Money, Acting, Fame, Meaning)
"It has been argued that British girls are incapable of deep feeling or brilliant acting owing to their lack of temperament. This, I am positive, is not true."
- Ivor Novello
(Related: Positive, Acting, Deep, Feeling, Girls, Temperament)
"Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult."
- Laurence Olivier
(Related: Acting, Occupation)
"And I've been acting for 39 years, so I define characters differently than I did in say Miami Vice."
- Edward James Olmos
(Related: Acting, Vice, Years)
"I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me."
- Tatum O'Neal
(Related: Acting, Actors, Film)
"The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting."
- Brian De Palma
(Related: Mistake, People, Acting, Direction, Friends)
"I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures."
- Brian De Palma
(Related: Time, Character, Acting, Comedy)
"Twelve to 15 years of acting school, and I am being a bird."
- Joe Pantoliano
(Related: Acting, Being, School, Years)
"I get to meet fantastic people, and I get to go through so many emotions. For me, I have a craving for that. When I'm acting, I feel great. It's not to be famous."
- Christopher Parker
(Related: People, Acting, Emotions, Famous)
"I've done quite a few adverts. I've also done some presenting and acting work in Spain. I did a lot of Spanish education videos for people wanting to learn English."
- Christopher Parker
(Related: Education, Work, People, Acting, English, Spain)
"There is some sadness for me now about acting because it used to be that there was a reverence for actors."
- Estelle Parsons
(Related: Acting, Actors, Now, Sadness)
"Acting is very start and stop."
- Estelle Parsons
(Related: Acting)
"You can't think about how people will perceive you or your character. All you can do is focus on your work. The rest is up to the universe. I've been acting for 16 years. I've done 55 movies and, in all seriousness, there's maybe five that are good and the rest are crap."
- Robert Patrick
(Related: Movies, Work, People, Character, Acting, Focus, Rest, Seriousness, Universe, Will, Years)
"Passion is the thing that sustains you in acting. If you're doing it for fame and money, don't even bother because it will never happen. The last thing I ever expected was to be paid for this."
- Scott Patterson
(Related: Money, Acting, Fame, Passion, Will)
"I love acting. When I'm acting I feel like I'm on vacation. I'm just having a wonderful time. The nightmare is just getting the work to happen."
- Elizabeth Pena
(Related: Love, Work, Time, Acting, Vacation)
"It's what still excites me most about acting: letting your imagination go places it's never been before. There's nothing better than that."
- Robin Wright Penn
(Related: Imagination, Nothing)
"Sean's a better person when he's directing. He becomes a queen when he's an actor. And he's so unhappy when he's acting."
- Robin Wright Penn
(Related: Acting, Actor, Queen)
"I used to ask Sean questions about acting. He's a brilliant actor, but I could never digest his information. I work primarily on an intuitive level."
- Robin Wright Penn
(Related: Work, Acting, Actor, Information, Questions)
"Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking."
- Sean Penn
(Related: Acting, Man, Walking)
"I love acting, truly my favorite people are actors."
- Sean Penn
(Related: Love, People, Acting, Actors, Favorite)
"I can only pay my electric bill for my last two years on my acting."
- Piper Perabo
(Related: Acting, Years)
"To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life."
- Fernando Pessoa
(Related: Life, Acting, Concern)
"If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people."
- William Petersen
(Related: Sports, People, Acting, Career, Feeling, Football, Years)
"A lot of producers cookie cut movies one after another, but I'll be a little more careful, and have the opportunity to be, because I have the acting career to subsidize the producing."
- Ryan Phillippe
(Related: Movies, Opportunity, Acting, Career)
"I becan acting when River was doing this TV series and they needed two kids for the show, so they got me and my little sister, Summer, to do it. After that I did some really weird guest spots with orangutans and stuff."
- Joaquin Phoenix
(Related: Sister, Acting, Guest, Kids, Summer)
"Acting is real important to me. I love it, and it's something I care about."
- Joaquin Phoenix
(Related: Love, Acting, Care)
"Music is a hobby, because I'm not making any money out of it, but I put just as much conviction into that as I do into my acting."
- River Phoenix
(Related: Money, Music, Acting, Conviction)
"Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on."
- River Phoenix
(Related: Acting)
"On some level in acting, what you're trying to find is truth, because when it's true is when it's also funny."
- David Hyde Pierce
(Related: Funny, Truth, Acting, Trying)
"Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted."
- Michael Pitt
(Related: Work, Acting, Actor, Fun, Hard work)
"And I taught acting for years, and without knowing it that was the real thing that started bending me toward directing."
- Sydney Pollack
(Related: Acting, Years)
"I like acting for now. But after seeing Apollo 13, what I really want to do is to be an astronaut. I'm dying to go to a space camp next summer!"
- Natalie Portman
(Related: Acting, Dying, Now, Space, Want)
"I like soap opera acting. If it's done really well, there's nothing better. It's old school. It's like what those melodramas in the '30s and '40s were like."
- Parker Posey
(Related: Acting, Nothing, Old, Opera, School)
"There are a lot of other things in this world that can and will bring me joy. Acting is one of them."
- Victoria Pratt
(Related: Acting, Joy, Will, World)
"Acting isn't the be-all end-all. There are a lot of other things in my life that will bring me joy if I didn't act anymore."
- Victoria Pratt
(Related: Life, Act, Acting, End, Joy, Will)
"I came to acting in a very circuitous way."
- Victoria Pratt
(Related: Acting)
"Hopefully I'll be successful with the singing, but there are so many other things I want to do, like acting. I'll do them one at a time first!"
- Katie Price
(Related: Time, Successful, Acting, Singing, Want)
"I desire to assist in attracting to this profession young men of character and ability, also to help those already engaged in the profession to acquire the highest moral and intellectual training."
- Joseph Pulitzer
(Related: Men, Character, Ability, Desire, Help, Profession, Training)
"I love acting and making your own luck. You have to recreate yourself, I guess. Although, I don't know how."
- Dennis Quaid
(Related: Love, Acting, Luck)
"I think we should be looking at the defense and seeing where we can actually be more efficient because I think that, you know, sometimes during the contracting process, we lose some efficiencies in that regard."
- Ben Quayle
(Related: Contracting, Defense)
"Great progress was made when arbitration treaties were concluded in which the contracting powers pledge in advance to submit all conflicts to an arbitration court, treaties which not only specify the composition of the court, but also its procedure."
- Ludwig Quidde
(Related: Progress, Contracting, Court)
"Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion."
- Robert Quillen
(Related: Acting, Being, Emotion)
"Some of the newer folks in the industry, I'm not sure they are familiar with the term acting. They don't understand what it means to play a character rather than just be a personality."
- Kathleen Quinlan
(Related: Character, Acting, Personality, Play)
"I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved."
- Aidan Quinn
(Related: Acting, Being)
"I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously."
- Aishwarya Rai
(Related: Movies, Enthusiasm, Acting, Career, Job)
"It always surprised me that I was getting acting work."
- Mary Lynn Rajskub
(Related: Work, Acting)
"The more I get to do this character, the more I realize that she's not just annoying. It's that her strength is not interacting with people socially. She just doesn't have time because she has so much going on in her brain."
- Mary Lynn Rajskub
(Related: Time, People, Character, Strength)
"Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it."
- Harold Ramis
(Related: Funny, Acting, Actors, Hair)
"I never achieved my first goal in the National Actors Theatre, which is to have a permanent Acting Company."
- Tony Randall
(Related: Goal, Acting, Actors, Company, First, Theatre)
"I've always enjoyed Acting. Acting is acting."
- Tony Randall
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is like going to the gym. You have to keep yourself in shape and concentrate on your core."
- Anthony Rapp
(Related: Acting)
"I'd never been to acting school, so I never thought I'd get this far."
- John Ratzenberger
(Related: Thought, Acting, School)
"I'm enjoying it, but I still don't know why I'm hooked on acting."
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Acting)
"That was the beginning of modern acting for me. You don't have to tell a camera everything. It gets bored if you do and wants to look elsewhere."
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Acting, Beginning)
"Acting is way of making yourself exist."
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Acting)
"At least when you're acting you can be someone. In front of the camera you have to be yourself. And who am I?"
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Acting)
"I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along."
- Stephen Rea
(Related: Acting, Want)
"A lot of what acting is paying attention."
- Nancy Reagan
(Related: Acting, Attention)
"I must say acting was good training for the political life which lay ahead for us."
- Nancy Reagan
(Related: Life, Acting, Training)
"I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet."
- Robert Redford
(Related: Art, Belief, Acting, Actor, Actors, Meaning, Old, Years)
"We had the boy's name picked out, but we didn't have a girl's. When he turned out to be a boy, we were so relieved. Literally, in the middle of contracting and pushing, and with my wife being drugged - out and half - lucid, we were still coming up with names."
- Paul Reiser
(Related: Wife, Being, Contracting, Name, Names)
"And after you've done the acting, there's a lot of places you can put your input - in the editing, in the production of it, in the rewriting of it and so on."
- Paul Reiser
(Related: Acting, Production)
"It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with."
- Ivan Reitman
(Related: Acting)
"I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again."
- Lee Remick
(Related: Movies, Acting, Hollywood)
"Acting has given me a way to channel my angst. I feel like an overweight, pimply faced kid a lot of the time - and finding a way to access that insecurity, and put it toward something creative is incredibly rewarding. I feel very lucky."
- Ryan Reynolds
(Related: Time, Acting, Insecurity)
"I never took acting classes, but I knew I could do it based on the skill with which I lied to my parents on a regular basis!"
- Ryan Reynolds
(Related: Acting, Parents, Skill)
"For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me."
- Ving Rhames
(Related: People, Acting, Spirit)
"I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me."
- Ving Rhames
(Related: Acting)
"If you want to be an actor, you have to do it because you love acting, not because you want to be a celebrity."
- Alfonso Ribeiro
(Related: Love, Acting, Actor, Celebrity, Want)
"Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance."
- Condoleezza Rice
(Related: Peace, Success, Acting, America, Chance, Help, Years)
"I had been singing all my life, but I started acting in high school."
- Kevin Richardson
(Related: Life, Acting, School, Singing)
"I have been taking classes and I'm familiar with stage, but I'm not as familiar with acting on camera."
- Kevin Richardson
(Related: Acting)
"I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting."
- Miranda Richardson
(Related: Acting, Film)
"Acting is the ability to dream on cue."
- Ralph Richardson
(Related: Dream, Ability, Acting)
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing."
- Ralph Richardson
(Related: Art, People, Acting)
"The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing."
- Ralph Richardson
(Related: Art, People, Acting)
"What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing."
- Alan Rickman
(Related: Acting)
"Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over."
- Alan Rickman
(Related: Control, Acting, Nerves)
"I ran spotlight. Swept up. Did box office. Ran the lighting board. But acting was the most fun."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Acting, Fun, Office)
"I learned never to listen to acting teachers because they don't know what the hell they're talking about."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Acting, Hell, Talking, Teachers)
"I learned much more about acting from philosophy courses, psychology courses, history and anthropology than I ever learned in acting class."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: History, Acting, Anthropology, Class, Philosophy, Psychology)
"There's nothing more boring than unintelligent actors, because all they have to talk about is themselves and acting. There have to be other things."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Acting, Actors, Nothing, Talk)
"You get money out of acting. You get gray hair out of directing. Actually, I get more of a rush from directing."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Money, Acting, Hair)
"I think the reason we're so crazy sexually in America is that all our responses are acting. We don't know how to feel. We know how it looked in the movies."
- Jill Robinson
(Related: Movies, Acting, America, Reason)
"Prior to Elephant I'd taken about six years of acting classes in Portland, but there's not a huge market there. The only thing we have is commercial stuff, and that didn't really appeal to me. So this is really a dream come true."
- John Robinson
(Related: Dream, Acting, Years)
"So for me having that element of being able to be competitive wasn't a problem. I'm very competitive. I thought if I could skate first, acting would come second. I could say my lines and then go do what I was saying. You don't have to fake it, you're not really acting."
- John Robinson
(Related: Thought, Acting, Being, First, Saying)
"Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: People, Acting, Being, Name, Old)
"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
(Related: Time, Acting, Actors, Difference, Theatre)
"The only time I commit to conspiracy theories is when something way retarded happens. Like Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: Time, Acting, Theories)
"After this whole acting thing is over and done, you eventually have to be human. Some people are never human. It's very weird."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: People, Acting)
"What made me fall in love with acting, which is my life, was watching other people perform. It made me hunger to do that."
- Elisabeth Rohm
(Related: Love, Life, People, Acting, Hunger)
"When someone's acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you're watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes."
- Cesar Romero
(Related: Time, Life, Acting, Company, Eyes, Fool, Ladies)
"If we ever do end up acting just like rats or Pavlov's dogs, it will be largely because behaviorism has conditioned us to do so."
- Richard Rosen
(Related: Acting, Dogs, End, Will)
"You see, I've never really studied acting."
- Diana Ross
(Related: Acting)
"I stumbled into acting and just loved it. I deferred law school-and I'm still deferred."
- Portia de Rossi
(Related: Acting, Law, School)
"We must be able to inspire. That's my goal in acting."
- Portia de Rossi
(Related: Goal, Acting)
"I've been in the studio experimenting on making a CD of my own. I'm trying out different producers, styles, sounds. With music, as opposed to acting, you are not playing a character. You are showing people who you are. I really want to have my spirit in it."
- Emily Rossum
(Related: Music, People, Character, Acting, Spirit, Trying, Want)
"I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen."
- Tim Roth
(Related: Acting, Care)
"There is less pressure as a character actor. It generally means that you will be acting for all of your life, which is my intention. It is not my intention to just be a rich and famous person, that would be pretty boring."
- Tim Roth
(Related: Life, Character, Acting, Actor, Famous, Intention, Pressure, Pretty, Will)
"I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job."
- Mickey Rourke
(Related: Acting, Europe, Fighting, Job, Years)
"It was the most fun I've ever had on a movie. It was one of the happiest times in my life. I was living in New York, and I really enjoyed acting at the time. Also, it's funny because that was also the time when I went downhill."
- Mickey Rourke
(Related: Funny, Time, Life, Acting, Living)
"So I think it was to Bryan's credit that he was able to let go of some of those things because you create these scenes and you think you become creative, even I, acting things, you become very creatively taken by it."
- Brandon Routh
(Related: Acting, Credit)
"The thing about acting is you don't want to let on how enjoyable it is or then everybody would want to become an actress. But it really is. It's a pleasure to go and exchange your identity."
- Gena Rowlands
(Related: Acting, Identity, Pleasure, Want)
"My belief about acting in one foot on a banana peel and the other one in the grave."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Belief, Acting, Grave)
"Literally, I think I've quit acting three or four times, only for a few days. Maybe for a few weeks."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Acting)
"I love acting with kids, cause they're great acting partners. They're totally present. Even when they're acting, they're still available and you can crack them up or something weird will happen and they'll go with it."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Love, Acting, Cause, Kids, Present, Will)
"After the brain tumor happened, I realized I love acting, I've always loved it, I may never get a chance to do it again."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Love, Acting, Chance, May)
"I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Acting, Night, Old, Public)
"And my mother caught wind of this. She never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Life, Time, Mother, Acting, Career, Wind)
"So I don't think I'm gonna pull my head into my shell just because a bunch of people start acting like idiots."
- Todd Rundgren
(Related: People, Acting, Idiots)
"Acting happened to me. If I had pursued it, I think it would have been like someone going to a bar, desperately looking for love and not finding anyone."
- Keri Russell
(Related: Love, Acting)
"I wasn't really serious about acting - I was serious about baseball."
- Kurt Russell
(Related: Acting, Baseball)
"Acting was something that just came along. But I made good money, so it wasn't something I was just going to put aside and pretend it didn't exist."
- Kurt Russell
(Related: Money, Acting)
"I don't really look for specific types of projects any more. I'm not taking care of a career anymore. I'm just having fun acting."
- Kurt Russell
(Related: Acting, Care, Career, Fun, Projects)
"Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly."
- Rosalind Russell
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is what I do. It's not what I solely define myself as."
- Meg Ryan
(Related: Acting)
"Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way."
- Katey Sagal
(Related: Music, Acting)
"I didn't actually begin professionally acting until I was 30."
- Katey Sagal
(Related: Acting)
"Being a former dancer, classical dancer, it informed me as a human being just in terms of the grace I guess. Ballet is a very graceful form of art. You also become very aware of your body and your mind and your body is working in conjunction. That kind of helps you in acting as well. It's not only using your mind, it's like making your mind communicate this character into your body so that you can bring it to life and physicalize it."
- Zoe Saldana
(Related: Life, Art, Character, Acting, Ballet, Being, Body, Grace, Mind)
"Go learn the language. Go take some acting lessons. Start from zero like everybody else."
- Roselyn Sanchez
(Related: Acting, Language)
"Acting is like roller skating. Once you know how to do it, it is neither stimulating nor exciting."
- George Sanders
(Related: Acting)
"One of the joys about acting is researching."
- William Sanderson
(Related: Acting)
"If you watch Olivier's interviews, he has this reptilian tongue; it seems too big for his mouth. My pursuit of that became distracting, so I let it go. The thrill was finding the right pair of glasses."
- Julian Sands
(Related: Pursuit, Right, Tongue)
"I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist."
- Susan Sarandon
(Related: Imagination, Acting, Actor, Empathy)
"If all the circumstances of acting are made to easy, then there's no grain of sand to make the pearl."
- Peter Sarsgaard
(Related: Acting, Circumstances)
"Acting is happy agony."
- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience."
- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Related: Experience, People, Acting, Question)
"I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."
- Siegfried Sassoon
(Related: Acting, Soldiers)
"Other acting opportunities had come along, but nothing that was tantalizing enough to me to step away from what I found most interesting."
- Fred Savage
(Related: Acting, Nothing)
"The term papers make me more crazy, because they involve more variables I cannot directly control! With acting, I feel more power-like I'm making all the choices."
- Fred Savage
(Related: Power, Acting, Choices)
"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."
- John Sayles
(Related: Acting, Actors, Old, Years)
"The hardest thing about movie acting is that if you're playing a character who changes within the movie, you've got to do that, but you've got to do it out of sequence, because we never have gotten to shoot in sequence, and that's really, really tough."
- John Sayles
(Related: Character, Acting)
"I like to act. I work for scale. I don't have an acting agent. I'm in the book."
- John Sayles
(Related: Work, Act, Acting)
"I love movies, I've always been interested in them, but I wanted to wait for the right time to start acting."
- Claudia Schiffer
(Related: Love, Time, Movies, Acting, Right)
"I was very outgoing, and a good-looking kid. I started doing all the catalogs. I made 60 commercials by the time I was 6. I must have been a natural, because I never took an acting lesson."
- Rick Schroder
(Related: Time, Acting)
"When Arab apologists wring their hands over an Israeli military incursion, they never mention what the Israelis are reacting to, or else diminish and distort it."
- Jack Schwartz
(Related: Military)
"My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Related: Dreams, People, Successful, Acting, Profession, State, Universe)
"The reason I got into acting was not to explore myself. I was a reader, I didn't care about acting. I got into it in college, but I had no interest really in that, in getting up in front of anybody."
- Campbell Scott
(Related: Acting, Care, College, Interest, Reason)
"You couldn't take football away from me, you couldn't take acting away from me."
- Dougray Scott
(Related: Acting, Football)
"I don't like acting things; I like feeling things."
- Dougray Scott
(Related: Acting, Feeling)
"Method acting is a label I don't really understand, because there's a method to everybody's acting."
- Dougray Scott
(Related: Acting)
"While it is challenging working with a kid, because they're so of the moment all the time. My acting style is to try to take something from my life that the character can relate to and that I can relate the character to."
- Kyra Sedgwick
(Related: Life, Time, Character, Acting, Style)
"You go to LA, or you go to New York, and it's really fun to go there. But they're not grounded. Everybody is just competing all the time for the limelight. It's too much entertainment industry. There are too many choices. And it's distracting to me."
- Bob Seger
(Related: Time, Choices, Entertainment, Fun)
"It always makes me sad when I think of how I saw Wagner wasting his vitality, not only by singing their parts to some of his artists, but acting out the smallest details, and of how few they were who were responsive to his wishes."
- Anton Seidl
(Related: Acting, Artists, Singing, Vitality, Wishes)
"When I began my search for the perfect skin care to fight the aging process, I noticed that my sensitive skin was reacting horribly to any product I used."
- Connie Sellecca
(Related: Care, Fight, Skin)
"I don't know how I could have an acting career with this."
- Connie Sellecca
(Related: Acting, Career)
"Life's like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Life, Acting, Excellence)
"I did commercials since I was 16, and that's kind of acting, depending on what you're selling."
- Joan Severance
(Related: Selling, Acting)
"Singing was my first love and I never even considered it after I started acting, but now I'm bringing it back into my life. I trained from the ages of 11 to 17. When I moved to New York and got into serious acting, I just kind of abandoned the whole singing thing. But when I grew up in Pennsylvania I went to voice lessons once a week."
- Amanda Seyfried
(Related: Love, Life, Acting, First, First love, Now, Singing, Voice)
"Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible."
- Amanda Seyfried
(Related: Music, Soul, Acting, Emotion, Emotions, Singing, Song)
"I did theater 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
(Related: Acting, Beginning, Fun, Interest, Theater)
"Theater to me is acting but it's more real on film."
- Ted Shackelford
(Related: Acting, Film, Theater)
"Acting is easier - writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious."
- William Shatner
(Related: Acting, Man, Writing)
"I think the acting satisfies the need and desire for approval."
- William Shatner
(Related: Acting, Approval, Desire)
"Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time."
- Fiona Shaw
(Related: Time, Acting, Misery)
"You have to do real acting, not just do a voice."
- Harry Shearer
(Related: Acting, Voice)
"I think that acting involves doing your job so well that you are able to help the viewer identify with the character."
- Ally Sheedy
(Related: Character, Acting, Help, Job)
"Usually in a battle sequence when a bomb is going off, you forget you're acting."
- Charlie Sheen
(Related: Acting, Battle, Forget)
"Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play."
- Sam Shepard
(Related: Acting, End, Film, Hate, Moments, Play)
"I was a sickly child, contracting tuberculosis at the age of five."
- Dinah Sheridan
(Related: Age, Contracting)
"While making Genevieve, I learned there could be a lot more to a film than just acting in it."
- Dinah Sheridan
(Related: Acting, Film)
"I kind of dwindled into acting."
- Ron Silver
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is not about knowing all this stuff; it's about character."
- Ron Silver
(Related: Character, Acting)
"You've got to keep taking certain risks, because my priority is in acting, it's not in movie stardom."
- Gary Sinise
(Related: Acting)
"There is no overacting, only untrue acting."
- Stellan Skarsgard
(Related: Acting)
"With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others."
- Helen Slater
(Related: Experience, Acting, Actors, Being, Self)
"Well, what is acting but the study of human behavior? And that's so fascinating to me."
- Amy Smart
(Related: Acting, Behavior, Study)
"This nation loves singing and loves acting."
- Kate Smith
(Related: Acting, Nation, Singing)
"For minority actors, developing our own projects has to be the eventual path. We have a lot of stories to tell and a really unique voice. But none of that is going to be heard as long as we're just the hired hands, acting."
- Jimmy Smits
(Related: Acting, Actors, Minority, Projects, Voice)
"Acting kind of pays my bills more than music does."
- Marla Sokoloff
(Related: Music, Acting)
"But you're right, I did think about acting more and then decided against it."
- Todd Solondz
(Related: Acting, Right)
"Anything that loosens you up and makes you freer is good, because that's what acting and performing is all about - being free. It gives you a better connection to the audience."
- Brett Somers
(Related: Acting, Being, Connection)
"I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra."
- Stephen Sondheim
(Related: Acting, Chance, Theater)
"A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear."
- Sophocles
(Related: Fear, Acting, Man, Word)
"I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely."
- Sophocles
(Related: Acting, Day)
"When it comes to social consequences, they've got all different people acting in different ways, very difficult to even have a proper criterion of success. So, it's a difficult task."
- George Soros
(Related: Success, People, Acting, Consequences)
"Now that I've got some films under my belt, I have the courage of my convictions regarding acting. It gives me a leg to stand on."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Courage, Acting, Now)
"There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Acting, Fulfillment)
"Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Action, Acting)
"I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Acting, Job)
"Acting is what happens on the way."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Acting)
"I went into acting because I had to make a good living. I had a child now and I had to support him any way I could... I wasn't happy, but I wasn't unhappy. I was just doing what I had to do to survive."
- David Soul
(Related: Acting, Living, Now, Support)
"Acting is easy and fun. You earn a lot of money, and you bang out with girls. The profession is given tremendous significance within our society, but it's not really worthy of it."
- James Spader
(Related: Money, Society, Acting, Fun, Girls, Profession)
"Acting is acting."
- Brent Spiner
(Related: Acting)
"I am a bit more of a whore with my acting than I am with my music. I am not a whore with my music."
- Rick Springfield
(Related: Music, Acting)
"Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts."
- Joseph Stalin
(Related: Facts, Mankind, Poor, Property)
"I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting."
- Jason Statham
(Related: Acting)
"Now that was one thing, but from an actor's point of view, this poor young man, crying from the moment I opened the door to the moment he left. Now if an actor did that they would say he's over-acting."
- Rod Steiger
(Related: Actor, Man, Now, Poor)
"Well I was eight years old, and I have an older cousin who is three years older than me and she was doing acting, commercials, and modeling at the time and... to see my cousin doing that was really inspiring and I wanted to do it. So I went to my mom and I asked her if I could do it, and for the acting part of it, she made me study for a year."
- Hailee Steinfeld
(Related: Mom, Time, Acting, Inspiring, Old, Study, Years)
"If it seems like you're doing work when you're acting, then you're doing something wrong."
- Parker Stevenson
(Related: Work, Acting, Wrong)
"Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show."
- James Stewart
(Related: Movies, Acting)
"I always stayed for the first curtain call and people always said, 'Who's that?' But this got me started in acting."
- James Stewart
(Related: People, Acting, First)
"It's well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show."
- Jimmy Stewart
(Related: Acting)
"The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again."
- Ben Stiller
(Related: Failure, Acting, Career, Writing)
"So anyway, I've learned a lot about myself just in terms of acting but just work ethic and interesting things like full-page monologues or talking straight into camera, which I had never gotten to do before."
- Emma Stone
(Related: Work, Acting, Talking, Work ethic)
"I used to do Facebook but you get a little too wrapped up in that stuff. Its more distracting than anything so I don't any more. I left it behind. I detoxed!"
- Emma Stone
"Life is a means of extracting fiction."
- Robert Stone
(Related: Life, Fiction)
"The show was number one in the ratings, Gordon Russell was our head writer, the story lines were magnificent and the acting most exciting. I loved working with Judith Light and all the other actors on the show at that time."
- Michael Storm
(Related: Time, Acting, Actors, Light, Writer)
"I have the luxury of being a little boy... To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting."
- Peter Stormare
(Related: Life, Acting, Being, Luxury)
"To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting."
- Peter Stormare
(Related: Life, Acting, Being)
"Acting is the most personal of our crafts. The make-up of a human being - his physical, mental and emotional habits - influence his acting to a much greater extent than commonly recognized."
- Lee Strasberg
(Related: Acting, Being, Habits, Influence)
"Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there."
- Meryl Streep
(Related: Acting, Being)
"I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you."
- Meryl Streep
(Related: People, Acting)
"I have four to five months, tops, per year to give to my acting work."
- Meryl Streep
(Related: Work, Acting, Months)
"I need to go where people are serious about acting."
- Meryl Streep
(Related: People, Acting)
"The idea of transformation - playing something I'm not - is the bit I enjoy most about acting."
- Mark Strong
(Related: Idea, Acting)
"Many people think voice over artists just read, there's much more to it. Without acting beats, scene study and improving skills, you won't make it."
- Tara Strong
(Related: People, Acting, Artists, Study, Voice)
"In general, I find that for videos the acting is more realistic."
- Tara Strong
(Related: Acting)
"I think it's definitely beneficial for these characters to have good acting voices behind them and it affects the characters in a way that people can feel like they're part of the game and that they know these characters."
- Tara Strong
(Related: People, Acting)
"Acting is very much like a child making believe. I'm not one to become a character, but I fall in love with the character. It's like having faith; you're going to be that person for a while."
- Lusia Strus
(Related: Love, Faith, Character, Acting)
"I have enjoyed acting very much, because I know it's not for real!"
- Gloria Stuart
(Related: Acting)
"It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting."
- Harry Stack Sullivan
(Related: Act, Acting, Feeling)
"Acting is glamour but writing is hard work, so I'm going to be an actress."
- Jacqueline Susann
(Related: Work, Acting, Glamour, Hard work, Writing)
"I don't think I have one iota of cynicism about acting."
- Donald Sutherland
(Related: Acting, Cynicism)
"But no, I love acting, it's a wonderful job."
- Donald Sutherland
(Related: Love, Acting, Job)
"The most significant piece of advice my father gave me early on about acting was, don't get caught acting. Really believe in what you're doing and then commit to it. Even if it feels uncomfortable, even if you feel that you're gonna look like an ass. It's all acting, but find the truth in a moment as opposed to just pretending you have and rather than trying to act your way out of it."
- Kiefer Sutherland
(Related: Father, Truth, Act, Acting, Advice, Trying)
"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
(Related: Experience, Acting, Play, Theatre)
"There's lots of interesting jobs in the profession besides acting, and I like to try and keep an eye on and understand other people's jobs, rather than just my own."
- Sarah Sutton
(Related: People, Acting, Eye, Jobs, Profession)
"I mean one of the basic rules when you're acting is that you mustn't stand in judgement on a character, you mustn't say Hitler was a bad man because you can't act in that way."
- Janet Suzman
(Related: Character, Acting, Man, Rules)
"People are afraid to ask musicians to be involved in projects because they anticipate being turned down. Young artists hesitate before contacting me. People in my position don't get approached often enough."
- David Sylvian
(Related: People, Artists, Being, Musicians, Projects)
"So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting."
- Ice T
(Related: Idea, Acting, Actor, Perspective)
"My advice is to make acting your second career choice."
- Amber Tamblyn
(Related: Acting, Advice, Career, Choice)
"A lot of people think I'm cynical when I talk about acting. The truth of the matter is, I just don't want someone to get some lame advice that will send them in the wrong direction."
- Amber Tamblyn
(Related: Truth, People, Acting, Advice, Direction, Talk, Want, Will, Wrong)
"A business like acting is 90% luck. You can be a star one minute and out of work the next."
- Amber Tamblyn
(Related: Business, Work, Acting, Luck)
"I loved the gentlemanly way they treated each other. It was unlike anything I was used to. I started helping them strike the set and, at 11, began taking acting classes privately."
- Jeffrey Tambor
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is the physical representation of a mental picture and the projection of an emotional concept."
- Laurette Taylor
(Related: Acting)
"When it's working, what acting is really about is getting into the essence of a moment in a creative, joyous way - through whatever frees you up."
- Lili Taylor
(Related: Acting)
"I see my job as an actor to be as good a channel as I can be. Acting is a gift, and I have respect for it."
- Lili Taylor
(Related: Acting, Actor, Job, Respect)
"I've always held to the belief, though, that people who do too much acting training always look like they're acting, you know?"
- Noah Taylor
(Related: People, Belief, Acting, Training)
"Acting is something I love."
- Rod Taylor
(Related: Love, Acting)
"Acting doesn't suffice."
- Rod Taylor
(Related: Acting)
"Good acting is about being as natural and calm as possible. These days producers have such definite ideas that you have to be prepared to do whatever they ask."
- Bryn Terfel
(Related: Ideas, Acting, Being)
"Vary the pace... is one of the foundations of all good acting."
- Ellen Terry
(Related: Acting)
"Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months."
- Kristin Scott Thomas
(Related: Acting, English, Months)
"Acting is a sense of wonder and magic and mystery for me and when life takes me on a new journey, I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward."
- Andrea Thompson
(Related: Life, Acting, Ballet, First, Journey, Magic, Mystery, Sense, Smile, Wonder)
"A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community."
- Emma Thompson
(Related: People, Acting, Community, Culture, Friends, Gay, World)
"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting."
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Acting, Living, Reading)
"Acting is playing - it's actually going out on a playground with the other kids and being in the game, and I need that. Writing satisfies that part of myself that longs to sit in my room and dream."
- Billy Bob Thornton
(Related: Dream, Acting, Being, Kids, Writing)
"Acting's not my whole life. My children definitely come first."
- Meg Tilly
(Related: Life, Acting, Children, First)
"I really enjoy acting. At home I can't even finish a sentence, and here I am reading these wonderful lines. I think it must be every housewife's dream, to be an actress part-time."
- Meg Tilly
(Related: Home, Dream, Acting, Housewife, Reading)
"I haven't really focused so much on getting acting work."
- Charlene Tilton
(Related: Work, Acting)
"With acting, it was really more of a general kind of experience of really just loving being in the theater."
- Marisa Tomei
(Related: Experience, Acting, Being, Theater)
"Not to get overly psychological about this, but it's probably why I became an actress in the first place: for that kind of freedom and refuge, as well as for the fact that I just love acting so much."
- Marisa Tomei
(Related: Love, Acting, Fact, First, Freedom)
"For fast-acting relief try slowing down."
- Lily Tomlin
"Acting is great. You spend your whole life trying to get it right."
- Stuart Townsend
(Related: Life, Acting, Right, Trying)
"I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality."
- Spencer Tracy
(Related: Acting, Noses, Personality, Voice, Want)
"The three of us acting was truly one of the best experiences I've ever had. I really look forward to the days when all three of us shoot together, because the sparks really fly."
- Jeanne Tripplehorn
(Related: Acting)
"I like to use all of myself, and acting wasn't doing that."
- Stanley Tucci
(Related: Acting)
"As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting."
- Stanley Tucci
(Related: Acting, Actors)
"In acting there's two different things: You're either pitching in a scene, or you're catching."
- Robin Tunney
(Related: Acting)
"Acting manifested as the primary focus over the years but now I am stirring the pot once again with my voice."
- Janine Turner
(Related: Acting, Focus, Now, Voice, Years)
"In 2003, I had the pleasure of acting in three films."
- Janine Turner
(Related: Acting, Pleasure)
"I never feel more alive than when I'm on stage. On film you feel chopped up, you can be acting from the neck up, or the hand, there is a lot of close up."
- Kathleen Turner
(Related: Acting, Film)
"I didn't get here for my acting... but I love show business."
- Ted Turner
(Related: Business, Love, Acting)
"It was a lot of fun being a child actress. It suited me. I don't think it suits everybody, but I was in it because I had a passion, not because my parents wanted me to make money. If other kids want to do it, and they really like acting, go for it."
- Alanna Ubach
(Related: Money, Acting, Being, Fun, Kids, Parents, Passion, Want)
"God is acting on your soul all the time, whether you have spiritual sensations or not."
- Evelyn Underhill
(Related: God, Time, Soul, Acting, Sensations, Spiritual)
"It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards."
- Eamon de Valera
(Related: Acting)
"And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way."
- Matthew Vaughn
(Related: Acting, Writing)
"I am only an actress when they say, 'action' and I stop being an actress when they say, 'cut'. I am a normal person outside of acting."
- Paz Vega
(Related: Acting, Being)
"I'm getting positive feedback for my acting so we'll see if any other interesting parts come up."
- Johnny Vegas
(Related: Positive, Acting)
"It is precisely as though I were possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being."
- Conrad Veidt
(Related: Acting, Being, Consciousness, Spirit)
"My father died. It is still a deep regret to me this day that in choosing acting as my career I was forced to hurt him. He died too early to see I had done the right, the only thing."
- Conrad Veidt
(Related: Father, Acting, Career, Day, Deep, Hurt, Regret, Right)
"I think the motion picture industry is a stupid business and I despise acting the scenes in short snatches, one at a time. I hate this film work. I am disgusted with myself. On the stage I could never play a part unless I felt it with all my heart and soul."
- Conrad Veidt
(Related: Business, Time, Work, Soul, Heart, Acting, Film, Hate, Play)
"I was never a villain on the stage. I always played strong, sympathetic types. My first stage role with a speaking part, believe it or not, was as a priest. It wasn't until I began acting in films that the producers and directors saw me primarily as a bizarre villain."
- Conrad Veidt
(Related: Acting, Bizarre, First)
"I used to be a dancer, and for me it was a really good combination of dance and acting."
- Patricia Velasquez
(Related: Dance, Acting)
"All of us should have free choice when it comes to patriotic displays... a government wisely acting within its bounds will earn loyalty and respect from its citizens. A government dare not demand the same."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Government, Acting, Choice, Loyalty, Respect, Will)
"I love acting, but it's all just a bonus."
- Tim Vine
(Related: Love, Acting)
"I started taking acting classes when I was twelve."
- Lindsay Wagner
(Related: Acting)
"Finally I had a place where I could express my pain and I felt safe because I didn't have to put my name on it. I think acting kept me alive back then."
- Lindsay Wagner
(Related: Acting, Name, Pain)
"It will be thought that I am acting strangely in concerning myself at this day with what appears at first sight and simply a well-known method of fortune-telling."
- Arthur E. Waite
(Related: Thought, Acting, Day, First, Fortune, Sight, Will)
"The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living."
- Christopher Walken
(Related: Acting, Living, Talk)
"Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. It's very important for me to know my lines, know them so well that I don't have to think about them."
- Christopher Walken
(Related: Acting, Saying, Words)
"The big secret in acting is listening to people."
- Eli Wallach
(Related: People, Acting, Listening)
"My wife says that stage acting is like being on a tightrope with no net, and being in the movies, there is a net - because you stop and go over it again. It's very technical and mechanical. On stage you're on your own."
- Eli Wallach
(Related: Movies, Wife, Acting, Being)
"Everyone thinks acting is easy. It's far from easy, but it's the most gratifying thing I do."
- Eli Wallach
(Related: Acting)
"I never lost my appetite for acting."
- Eli Wallach
(Related: Acting, Appetite)
"I've never lost my appetite for acting; it's innovative and challenging."
- Eli Wallach
(Related: Acting, Appetite)
"Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Truth, Lie, Virtue, Acting, Injustice)
"I didn't study acting."
- Ray Walston
(Related: Acting, Study)
"I'd like to think there'll be too much of real life going on for me to want to do much acting."
- Julie Walters
(Related: Life, Acting, Want)
"I don't want to give up acting - it's what I am."
- Julie Walters
(Related: Acting, Want)
"I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre."
- Julie Walters
(Related: Acting, Heroes, Theatre)
"I was studying acting, going to UCLA, selling real estate on the weekends."
- Burt Ward
(Related: Selling, Acting)
"Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life."
- Denzel Washington
(Related: Family, Life, Acting, Living)
"You don't know when you're being watched. That's one of the weird things about celebrity. It's my least favorite part of acting, celebrity."
- Denzel Washington
(Related: Acting, Being, Celebrity, Favorite)
"One good thing about acting in film is that it's good therapy."
- Denzel Washington
(Related: Acting, Film, Therapy)
"I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life."
- Ethel Waters
(Related: Life, Act, Acting, Play)
"When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice."
- Emily Watson
(Related: Time, Life, Decision, Acting, Drama, School, Thinking)
"I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me."
- Emma Watson
(Related: Acting, Fact, Press)
"Coming back to a television series puts you back in the limelight and gives you a platform for your ideas. If you're not acting on a series, you don't get the ability to communicate to people."
- Dennis Weaver
(Related: People, Ideas, Ability, Acting, Television)
"I think I have always tried to do the smaller films. I like to jump around and there is something really nice for acting in a smaller film. But I think now, Hollywood's movies certainly involve a younger generation for the most part and so... I love going back and forth."
- Sigourney Weaver
(Related: Love, Movies, Acting, Film, Hollywood, Now)
"Initially I probably didn't even call it acting, but dressing up or something. As a kid I think you fully imagine the world in which you want to inhabit, so you put some clothes on and just kind of freely imagine this world, and it's a total imaginary world."
- Hugo Weaving
(Related: Acting, Clothes, Want, World)
"My biggest accomplishment was playing "Lark" on the daytime drama Port Charles because it was the most regular acting job I have had, and I had to step in and fill someone else's shoes."
- Amy Weber
(Related: Accomplishment, Acting, Drama, Job)
"More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Acting, Fact, Respect, Spring)
"I take my fun very seriously, whether it's playing the drums or acting in comedy bits. The need to be disciplined about it, and not take it lightly, and not be too casual, is something I take deeply to heart."
- Max Weinberg
(Related: Heart, Acting, Comedy, Fun)
"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."
- Fay Weldon
(Related: Life, Love, Acting)
"You know one of the things about going from modeling to acting is it's so much more fulfilling. With modeling, you get your picture taken, which is great, good for you, you know? But in acting, you're able to reach in and show a little bit more of yourself."
- Tom Welling
(Related: Acting)
"Acting is my first love."
- Dawn Wells
(Related: Love, Acting, First, First love)
"My favorite way of getting out of doing chores is by acting like I'm asleep. But it never works."
- Devon Werkheiser
(Related: Acting, Favorite)
"Acting will always be my first passion, it's what I live to do and I hope to be lucky enough to do it the rest of my life."
- Devon Werkheiser
(Related: Life, Hope, Acting, First, Passion, Rest, Will)
"The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting."
- Jessamyn West
(Related: Acting, Actor)
"I'm not giving up acting, I'm definitely not going to stop."
- Shane West
(Related: Acting, Giving)
"I really wasn't even sure if I should continue acting. I would like try and figure out if I could be good enough to do it. It was like 10 or 12 years into my career before I felt like maybe I can do it. It was such a different time than now."
- Forest Whitaker
(Related: Time, Acting, Career, Now, Years)
"There is no acting in a serial. You simply race through the reels."
- Pearl White
(Related: Acting, Race)
"I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules."
- Charlotte Whitton
(Related: Acting)
"When you're a working actor and you're happy to be one, you can't focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself."
- Olivia Wilde
(Related: Acting, Actor, Energy, Focus, Will)
"I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting."
- Olivia Wilde
(Related: Graduation, Love, Acting, Theater)
"I don't mean to sound - I don't want it to come out funny, but I don't like show business. I love - I love acting in films. I love it."
- Gene Wilder
(Related: Love, Business, Funny, Acting, Sound, Want)
"I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have anther chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous."
- Gene Wilder
(Related: Art, Love, Acting, Chance, Film, Want)
"Acting for me is not that quid pro quo."
- Tom Wilkinson
(Related: Acting)