Actor Quotes

5575 quotes by 2698 authors

An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize… — Alec Guinness
Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels,… — Charles Dickens
The big gap between the ability of actors is confidence. — Kathleen Turner
An actor has to burn inside with an outer ease. — Michael Chekhov
If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. — Jack Lemmon
Every scene you will ever act begins in the middle, and it is up to you, the actor, to provide what comes before. — Michael Shurtleff
All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene. — Meryl Streep
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
The inner life of the [imagination], and not the personal and tiny experiential resources of the actor, should be elaborated on the stage and shown… — Michael Chekhov
Actor training should be broadly humanistic, involving the study not just of dramatic literature and theatre history, but of languages, literature, and history generally, and… — Richard Hornby
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
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. — Lee Strasberg
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
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 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
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… — Michael Shurtleff

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