Popular quotes about Actor! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I wanted to be an actor. Maybe a comic actor, but an actor. That's what got me into acting was putting on an act, because in life, I wasn't funny and I felt on stage or in the movies, I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.
Gene WilderTruthfully, most directors don't direct actors. Every actor is different, so when you're asked, "How do you approach an actor?," it depends on the actor. With some, you do nothing. With some, you're very specific.
John LandisDo you want to be an actor, or do you want to be a celebrity? I made that decision when I went to Juilliard. I wanted to be an actor. So, if I get the opportunity to be an actor and do some cool, fun and interesting projects, Iโm going to do that.
Anthony MackieIf you're a certain type of actor, then eventually stepping into a director's shoes is a natural transition. I've always been the actor who's very focused on the narrative, where my character is in the story, and how I can benefit the story. I've always had a technical aspect of what the lens is, how the camera is going to move, how I can feed the information the director applies within that move. If you're that type of actor, narrative-based, technically proficient, the next step is actually not that far.
Russell CroweWhen 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. So the director's task is just that โ to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over. And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.
James DeanRead more. Read. Read. Read. Deeply, widely, read. Learn all kinds of subjects. The smarter you are as an actor, the better an actor you'll be.
Steve GuttenbergI'm a comedic actor, not to mix words, but it's something I think about. A comedic actor. I like to think that Christopher Guest, Phil Hartman, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness are comedic actors. And Dan Aykroyd, too. Those are my heroes.
Mike MyersAnd my father, being a good Swiss puritan, always really insisted that if I was going to be an actor, I shouldn't just be an actor, I should know about the whole process.
Rene AuberjonoisI live with someone, actor Peter Krause, who didn't find an interest in being an actor until the very end of college. So my message is: There's so much freedom left. There's no ticking clock. It's just not true.
Lauren GrahamI had a teacher in Paris, who said that if an actor forgot what it's like to play as a child he shouldn't be an actor. I've always loved being with children. It's marvellous to see the fresh ways they see the world. Watching them look at a tree or a river helps you to understand something that's very important.
Simon McBurneyMy family was always very supportive. Whether you're an actor or not, everybody hears the horror stories of people going to L.A. and trying to be an actor, and their dreams are crushed, and they end up working for the IRS. So they were always protective to the point that they wanted me to have a backup plan, which is understandable, but there was always something inside of me that knew: backup plan, schmackup plan.
Zachary LeviYou know obviously a big TV or film break would be lovely, but I find that Iโm essentially a theatre trained actor and thatโs what I love doing. I love fringe theatres in London, I love theatres like the Royal Court, Soho and the National obviously and if I could work in any of those and be a jobbing actor for a while then Iโm very lucky.
Kit HaringtonIn actual fact, I wanted to be an actor, but I was a lawyer, and I was a week away from qualifying and was fired. And that's the day I made an announcement: "Hey, for seven years, you thought I was going to be a lawyer. Well, I'm not. I've just lost my job, and I'm packing my bags and moving to London tomorrow to be an actor."
Gerard ButlerI've always known that I wanted to be an actor. My family kind of was a theatrically inclined family. My father came to New York when he was a young man to be an actor and he, over a course, was in a couple Broadway musicals. I grew up in family where theater was always part of the vocabulary. By the time I was a teenager I was just totally obsessed, and it was the only thing I could imagine myself doing.
Peter VackIn my career, I've had kind of a strange trajectory as an actor. I started out doing movies and theater and stuff, but then I had a terrible problem with stage fright as an actor on stage, and I quit stage acting for a long, long time.
Fred MelamedMine is an actor's voice, not a singer's voice, but the part was written for an actor (Richard Burton), not a singer.
Jeremy IronsYou know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.
Whoopi GoldbergI don't want to infantilize the actor; I want to empower the actor. Actors can be many things, but all of the really good ones are really great storytellers, and I'm interested in that. If you're not interested in that as a director then you better be Stanley Kurbrick.
Paul BettanyAlmost everything I learned about being an actor came from those early years at the Actor's Studio.
Paul NewmanSometimes you choose the wrong actor, he could be the best actor ever, but hes not cast in the right part then it doesnt work.
Sophie MarceauIf a good actor wants a role, they'll do whatever it takes to get the part. Directors are the same. We do 'meetings', not auditions: that tells you a whole lot more about an actor, too.
Gurinder Chadha[Ryan Reynolds] is my favorite [ on Top Gear] - I think he's the most hilarious actor who just has not been able to catch a break in terms of being known as the most hilarious actor.
Doug BensonAn actor puts himself in the hands of a director. And the director's first responsibility, obviously, is to tell the story, but the smallest thing that's not true reads on the screen. So if a director sees that an actor is not believable, he needs to help him become believable.
Tobin BellDo what you want I don't care. That's the thing to say to an actor. Most people don't understand that. Not to manipulate them. That's what you say to an actor. You got a problem with the whole environment in doing that? Fine, what are we going to do to make the scene work? Now you have someone on your side. Now you have someone working with you.
Campbell ScottBusiness is very personal. For me, everything is extremely personal. With actors, the fact that I write helps, because when you say to an actor "Oh I want you to do it a little bit more ...," without saying what you want more of, then the actor doesn't know what to do. But if you can put into words exactly what you want, then the experience of writing is helpful with that.
Marjane SatrapiI'm an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I'm just taking the best stuff that I can find that's sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is. I don't want to work for scale anymore. I'm at a point now where, no matter how good something is, I'm not going to kill myself and end up in the hole.
Alan ArkinI don't want to take shots at professional actors, because obviously the great ones are great. But I do think that given the kind of stories I've been telling in my films, it's hard for me to imagine how professional actors would have done better. And it's easy for me to imagine how they would have done worse. Because I think a lot of what an actor is trained to do and a lot of what an actor's instincts point toward is clarification, is always making it clear what's happening in the story, how the character fits into the scene, what the character wants.
Andrew BujalskiYou're in a very nice position as an actor when you're portraying a piece of history that actually happened and portraying characters that actually existed. There's so much more to draw on and your research as an actor becomes much easier than if it's some fiction that you're trying to create a world around and background and history.
Jamie DornanThis new economy that's just emerged has a new central economic actor. It's not the worker, the person who produces, nor the person who consumes, the purchaser. It's a new actor that does both things at the same time, call them a creator. They both create and consume in the same single act, and we're just beginning to see the shape of this new economy and it changes not just the economy itself, it's going to change the whole nature of the work relationship.
Paul SaffoI fell in love with film. I didn't start out to be a film actor. I wanted to be a theater actor.
Chiwetel EjioforSometimes it's harder to play good tennis with a bad tennis player - the same way it's hard to be a good actor with a bad actor. It's just an unpleasant experience.
Josh LucasI grew up, especially as an actor thinking that I had to move to New York to be a good actor. But after a while you start to live the world a little bit and you start to appreciate where you're from.
Josh BrolinWith every action oriented or adventure film, there's going to be a moment when every actor becomes a stuntman and every stuntman becomes an actor. You try to do as much of it as you can, but inevitably the studio wants you to finish the movie. So you've got to slow down and you're really got to defer to your team to make sure you do.
Nicolas CageThere is no more reason for a room on a stage to be a reproduction of an actual room than for an actor who plays the part of Napoleon to be Napoleon, or for an actor who plays Death in the old morality play to be dead.
Robert Edmond JonesIf you can't fail then how can you possible develop as a communicator or as a creator of anything? We are locked into a deeply unhealthy notion that somehow you've got to succeed all the time. An appalling notion. Any painter or writer will tell you that that is no way to proceed. One of the things that will kill off a decent actor, especially a young actor early on and they will never recover from it, is too much success. It's disastrous. You stop being criticized, therefore you stop challenging yourself. You then can't afford to fail because there's too far to fall.
Emma ThompsonIf you really want to become an actor, but only providing that acting doesn't interfere with your golf game, political ambitions and your life, you don't want to become an actor. Not only is acting more than a part time job, it's more than a full time job. It's a full time obsession.
Michael CaineI never wanted to be an actor. My dad was an actor, and he never brought joy home, so I didn't view it as something that I would want to do. But I got fired as a secretary, and then I started studying, I started doing it just to earn money. And it took me a long time to learn to love it. And what I loved was telling a story. I tried to avoid making plays or films that weren't telling a story that I felt was important. I discovered in the process that it makes you more empathic because you have to enter someone else's reality and learn to see through many other people's eyes.
Jane FondaThat was a bizarre and unlikely event, which has misled a generation of drama students from my old drama school that dreams really do come true. I was an unemployed actor. I had been an actor for about eight years, and had worked in theater, and done a tiny bit of TV, and somehow an audition video of mine ended up on Kevin Costner's television screen, and he rang me up and invited me to fly first-class to Hollywood and be in his movie The Postman.
Olivia WilliamsIf I have enough ego to say I'm a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.
Peter FondaWhat's nice about writing and making films is that being able to see a film from the outside - from the inception through production and then completion - just informs what you're doing when you're an actor. And when you're an actor, it informs the decisions you make when you're making a film. It's using two different sides of your personality.
Peter VackI think I always wanted to be an actor - sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? And I pretended once that I wanted to be a vet because one of the teachers asked me and saying you want to be an actor sounds a little bit silly. And I do still feel a bit silly saying it. You feel a bit fraudulent.
Sophie ThompsonI feel like I express myself, as an actor. Whatever the character is put in front of me, I try to bring truth to it, whichever way it lands. I try to bring as much truth to it and make it as believable as I can. I think that's the job of an actor.
Tyler PerryOne of my favorite artists is Tom Waits, whom most people think of as a wonderful singer-songwriter and a great poet. I certainly think of him that way, but I also know him as a terrific actor. You know, that persona that he puts on when he's doing his music comes from being an actor, figuring out a persona.
Jeff BridgesI think, at the end of the day, if youre a good actor, then youre a good actor.
John Benjamin HickeyAn actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet. In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.
James Dean