« All Acting Quotes · Michael Shurtleff's Page
Acting Quotes by Michael Shurtleff
- To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted.
- Competition is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get along. And they…
- Conflict is what creates drama. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.
- Creating relationship is the heart of acting. It is basic. It is essential.
- Listening is not merely hearing. Listening is reacting. Listening is being affected by what you hear. Listening is active.
- Whatever you decide is your motivation in the scene, the opposite of that is also true and should be in it.
- Humor [in a scene] is not jokes. It is that attitude toward being alive without which you would long ago have jumped off the 59th…
- Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before.
- The first step to a better audition is to give up character and use yourself.
- Competition [in a scene] is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get…
- Take nothing for granted. Make an emotional discovery as often as you can find one in every scene. Ask yourself: What is new?
- There's only one reason why a character drinks: to seek confrontation. To fight for what they want in ways normally denied them.
- Acting in theatre or television or screen is only for the irrecoverably diseased, those so smitten with the need that there is no choice.
- An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. We are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don't realize they must go looking…
- We don't live for realities, but for the fantasies, the dreams of what might be. If we lived for reality, we'd be dead, every last…
- Consistency is the death of good acting.
- An actor must make his needs (goals, wants, objectives) so strong that he is willing to interfere with the other actor in order to get…
- An expression of feeling isn't worth anything unless it interferes with what the other actor in the scene wants.
More Acting Quotes
- I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to… — Kevin Bacon
- A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly. — Kevin Bacon
- I find what I do for a living really funny. I mean, acting is kind of a hilarious thing for a grown… — Christian Bale
- I wanted to go to acting school, and I did a few modeling jobs to pay for acting school. I never aspired… — Jacqueline Bisset
- The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each… — Paulo Coelho
- The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public. — Samuel Johnson
- The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. — Aristotle
- For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take… — Mary Kay Ash