Acting Quotes

I've read all of Shakespeare and practiced a lot of lines. ... I am going to do Juliet first. Don't laugh. What, with what makeup, costume and camera can do, my acting will create a Juliet who is 14, an innocent virgin.

Most people who'll remember me, if at all, will remember me as an action guy, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But there will be a certain group which will remember me for the other films, the ones where I took a few chances. At least, I like to think so.

Acting, it's not my life, my children and my family, that's life. I'll get up every morning, God willing, for that.

Sometimes with a comedy it's just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.

I was only a leading man for a minute; now I'm a character actor.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right. And I guess I've always had too much fantasy to be only a housewife.

There's something about the first time an actor runs the material over his or her face you know when they kind of run it through their eyes and you see the thing and there is little imperfections in it and not every line is delivered perfectly, and it doesn't have that mechanical feeling.

Acting is an animal thing, not an intellectual thing.

In acting class, you talked always about keeping it real and don't act... connect with the people and connect with the partner that you're acting with. The same is also true in politics.

Personality is the most important thing to an actress's success.

Why am I a star? It can't be because of looks.

Acting to me is a very organic art form and you just go and do it. And I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed. Let me bring in what I want to bring in, and if something's wrong, just tell me about it and I'll make some corrections or adjustments. And that's what I do.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

I love acting. I love stage work, more than anything. It's just live. It's right there in front of you. If you make a mistake, they know it and you know it. I won't do anything where I feel like I'm just making a fool out of myself. By doing that, I'm able to rise to my highest potential.

I never considered myself a cowboy, because I wasn`t. But I guess when I got into cowboy gear I looked enough like one to convince people that I was.

How could an actor become president?

I think as you get older, you find you can play more things because you're moving to a different category. You play a certain thing as a younger man, playing action roles like I did. Then I moved out, and I kept trying to do different things all the time.

I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.

If I play a stupid girl and ask a stupid question, I've got to follow it through. What am I supposed to do, look intelligent?

I'm just naturally gravitating towards different things. As you mature, different subject matters. And as you're older, you can't play as many parts, or you shouldn't be playing the parts that you used to play. But also there's the opportunity to play parts that you couldn't have.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, 'One tear, right now,' that one tear would pop out.

An actor knows two important things - to be honest in what he is doing and to be in touch with the audience. That's not bad advice for a politician either.

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.

To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership-not only on the movie set where I learned it, but everywhere.

What we did [shooting "Fences"] was we got young students from Carnegie Mellon, the acting and theater students, and we had them as our understudies. I told them, "You have to be off book and be ready. If Viola [Davis] has to leave you have to jump in."

The stock actor is a stage calamity

That's one of the actor's secrets: With everything you do, learn something new about yourself.

Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can't see any difference between take one and take 20.

My illusions didn't have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve!

I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity, and that includes all kinds of parts.

The dramas for me allow me to explore more behavioral, deeper psychological things. But the comedies obviously allow me to explore the idea of really working off other people. I'm having more fun doing that.

We'll all retire from life at some point. The great thing about acting is you don't necessarily have to retire.

Reality doesn't have any preconceived ideas. You've got to learn how to smoke the cigarette, not act smoking the cigarette. You need to drink the drink, not act drinking the drink. You've got to do things and not show them.

Doing a scene is like opening a bottle. If it doesn't open one way, try another - perhaps even give it up for another bottle?

I tried to empty myself and let the spirit of Sethe inhabit me.

I always felt I was a nobody, and the only way for me to be somebody was to be - well, somebody else. Which is probably why I wanted to act.

I just try to be honest and true to the character and play the part.

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.

As an actor, you can certainly, at any moment and at any time, discover 400 people who think you're stupid, fat and ugly.

I try to encourage actors to work harder off screen because that's where you find things.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

As Michael (Chekhov)'s pupil, I learned more about acting. I learned psychology, history, and the good manners of art - taste.

If anybody asks me what I attribute the longevity of my career to, then I say it's because I was never satisfied with being a cowboy in the plains of Spain and later I was never satisfied with just playing a detective in San Francisco, and constantly just pushing the envelope.

Acting is about going into the space, and there are just some places that I'm not willing to go.

I got started as an actor when I was 12.

Sometimes you do know, in 'Commando' when I said 'I lied', I knew that it was going to be a funny line. I've never had a bad line.

I guess any movie actor can become a role model for audiences out there who enjoy him.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.

Acting isn't something you do. Instead of doing it, it occurs. If you're going to start with logic, you might as well give up. You can have conscious preparation, but you have unconscious results.

It was never my dream to be famous. I didn't start acting to be a movie star. I started in the theater and my desire was to get better at my craft. It's still my desire. I don't consider myself a movie star, nor do I really have the desire to be one. I'm just an entertainer. An actor who works hard at his craft. Whatever labels people give me, that's not really me or part of my process.

The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.

The reason why I could get into acting was because it takes nothing to get out of who I am and go into somebody else.

An actor should be judged by his performance only.

It was only in the theatre that I lived

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don't have a toy, they'll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

If you took acting away from me, I'd stop breathing.

I do not improvise in heels.

Come on, I know bad acting when I hear it.