Acting Quotes

4873 Acting quotes by 2890 unique authors

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. [You must] reach the… — Jack Lemmon
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… — Michael Shurtleff
An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short,… — Alec Guinness
Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite. — Ellen Terry
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… — Michael Shurtleff
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. — Lee Strasberg
Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a… — Uta Hagen
There can be no acting or doing of any kind till it be recognized that there is a thing to be done; the thing once… — Thomas Carlyle
The articulate, trained voice is more distracting than mere noise. — Seneca the Younger
Every little moment has a meaning all its own. — Sanford Meisner
Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself. — John Gielgud
Art is violent. To be decisive is violent. ... To place a chair at a partial angle on the stage destroys every other possible choice,… — Anne Bogart
The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the… — Alla Nazimova
With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he's playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such… — Paul Robeson
It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's… — Elia Kazan
The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of… — Viola Spolin
The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting. — Charlie Chaplin
To be an actor you have to be a child. — Paul Newman
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to fully express emotion. — Unknown Author
Our everyday self is a narrow construct...Our total self is far broader, ultimately infinite. Actors who seem to be playing themselves are actually playing roles… — Richard Hornby
It is highly possible that what is called 'talented behavior' is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. From this point of view, it is… — Viola Spolin
In the theatre we reach out and touch the past through literature, history and memory so that we might receive and relive significant and relevant… — Anne Bogart
Emotional release by itself, no matter how "real," "honest," etc. the emotion may be, is never enough to create a character...such release has no artistic… — Richard Hornby
Consistency is the death of good acting. — Michael Shurtleff
Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part. — William Hazlitt

Who Wrote These Acting Quotes

2,890 authors contributed a total of 4,873 Acting Quotes, led by these top contributors: