Quotes About Actor

I definitely consider myself a Method actor, because of my training. I might dispute what people consider a Method actor to be. For my money, a Method actor is an actor who has a technique. That has a method. And not one method, but whatever might be required. So a Method actor is always learning.

I wasn't a class clown, I never developed this comedic flair as a kid. Even when I decided to become an actor, it was just to be an actor, not necessarily a comedic actor. I wasn't that guy who struck out with women so he became really funny, and that's when the women started to like him.

If 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.

For an actor to be working at all is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't. So it's just silly for a working actor to say, 'Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay' especially if you're a leading man. Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.

I'm Irish and very proud of being Irish, but as an actor, your extraction should be secondary, really. You should be able to embody whatever character it is, wherever the character comes from. That's always been important, for me. I'm an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor.

I just enjoy the filmmaking side of things. I feel like when you're an actor, sometimes you're in other people's hands and they're in charge of your creative life. Whereas with my production company, I'm the one that gets to make those choices for how I'm gonna spend my time and what content I'm going to be creating. I definitely learn a lot, especially about acting, by producing and directing and seeing how it all comes together, and seeing the other side of things, appreciating what goes into pre- and post-production, and all those things you don't see when you're an actor.

I watched a film with a very famous, great, great actor, I won't mention his name because everyone loves his memory, but I thought, "God he was acting a lot." Great actor, but nonstop acting. Wall to wall, fitted-carpet acting.

I was an actor... or, at least, I was trying to be an actor.

Certainly what constitutes a stage actor, what constitutes a film actor, I don't even know what that is. And both things are very accurate, in a sense. In terms of people's needs to concentrate on race, I wonder if it's completely necessary, but it's not something that is so dynamically relevant to me that I feel it should be one thing or another.

First of all, it was wonderful to have a home. Consistent work when you're a journeyman actor, when you're a character actor, is really hard to come by. When you can get it, you have to cherish every moment of it - cherish the crew, cherish the cast, cherish the stage, cherish everything. Because when it's over, it's really hard to get back.

If you're not an actor, or if you're any other kind of artist, there's this sense that, "I must express this thing." Why make a painting if you don't feel like you have to for something inside of yourself? Why make a song if you don't feel like you have to because there's something that you need to get out? And when you're an actor and you're not performing text that you've written, I think there's this bizarre disconnect with the must-ness of it.

Acting, music, painting... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.

There are moments when it's unbelievable how people who work on the hair or on the little bit of skin here, they have no other care or interest since this part of their job is the only thing that needs to look good. So you have to push everybody to the side so that you can have a connection with your actor and give some air to your actor.

In order to feel safer on his private jet, actor John Travolta has purchased a bomb-sniffing dog. Unfortunately for the actor, the dog came six movies too late.

You 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.

I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor.

For me, an actor is really, first and foremost, a person and an individual, more than they are an actor or a professional.

I think, when people so strongly associate an actor with a character they play - but the main feeling is I feel very happy that I've been able to play somebody that people connect so strongly to. That's overall a very good feeling. There's the sweet and the sour, I guess. It does sting a little bit. Your insecurity as an actor maybe seeps in, but ultimately I think it's a very lovely thing. It doesn't happen that often. It's mostly good, I'm fine with it.

In fact, now for whatever reason, if we're recording in the same room, I get a little distracted because I'm watching the actor instead of listening to the actor. The way we do it now, they're on the phone, and we're sitting here with scripts in front of us taking notes seriously and marking takes and doing some adlibs. I can really focus on the words and not the surroundings.

I lost 90 pounds and my blood pressure went down to a normal level and the salt in my urine disappeared. And that was when I had to make the transition from fat character actor to thin character actor.

It's the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that's fun to watch. But it isn't usually about acting.

In order to make a movie it isn't enough to have a script, it isn't enough to have a director, it isn't enough to have a male actor and a female actor, it isn't enough to have financing. You have to have them all at the same instant.

I've never really felt like I was a child actor. Just an actor who happened to be quite young.

The acting I got into by doing what we call pantomime, when I was sixteen. And, there were loads of very pretty girls in the show. I realized; I found out very early on, that the lead comic gets the girl. So, that was cool. When I went to university, I studied Economic Social History. And drama. That kind of got me into it. My main passion was to make films. It was never to be an actor. At that time, there weren't many opportunities for a working class Scottish actor. It was kind of an English thing. And it required a certain mannered cerebral acting style that I couldn't relate to.

I'm a geeky actor, in the way that I like the craft of acting. I trained as a stage actor and was given a lot of technical tools to play with. I like the craft of acting. It sounds geeky when I say it, but it's true.

You're not actually being a good actor all the time. But people refer to me as a good actor because they read it someplace, not because they've made up their own mind. So I'm very lucky!

You'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.

I think by default I wanted to be an actor because, on a movie set as a little kid, the only thing that you can do is be an actor. And I was really enthralled by the whole process.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.

If you were a kid actor, if you had any plans of being an actor as an adult, you were really barking up the wrong tree.

I'm just an actor. Just a stupid actor.

I'm so blessed to have been a working actor. If they still would like to make me a superstar, I'm available, but so far, being a working actor has been great. It's taken me everywhere.

I'm foremost an actor. I feel embarrassed being compared to the guys who really work at it. I fake it, I make believe I know all about it, which is what you're supposed to do as an actor.

We [black actors] are more respected in Europe, because in Europe, I'm not a black actor - I'm an action star. In America, I'm a black actor.

The next actor I meet that uses the term 'courageous' to describe another actor's performance is getting punched in the face.

I guess George Clooney would be a wonderful silent actor, and Leonardo DiCaprio is such a wonderful actor he certainly could do it.

An 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.

I was very young when I was in RNBDJ and that journey had enabled me as an actor. I am not very confident of my growth as an actor but I am very confident of my growth as a person.

If you're an actor, always be true to your character. If you are not an actor, have character and always be true to yourself.

My hunger and desperation, being an actor, an out of work actor - my memory of that is as fresh as an open wound.

Unless it's a specific accent, or something about physicality you have to change, I am generally not such a conscious actor.

Some actors might just do one thing, and another actor does another thing. I do an awful lot of preparation with the script, really. What I do is repeat the script, over and over and over again. Through that, it's almost like it seeps into my enamel. I'm reading all the characters, as well as my own. That is where the bulk of my preparation goes into.

Sometimes in the life of an actor you're not getting offered any jobs that speak to you. The trouble with acting is that you're only as good as your opportunities.

When people warned me there would be long periods out of work if I became an actor, I couldn't keep a straight face because that was exactly what I had in mind.

I definitely think of myself still as a writer first, and feel like - with the lucky exception of this - any acting opportunity I've gotten is usually because I was writing on it. This is like a wonderful vacation. If you've ever sat in a writers' room it's the most disgusting, tortuous place, so it's a treat to be treated like a movie actor.

My parents were not at all backstage parents. We had none of that in the family. It was just very clear right away that I was an actor, even from 4 years old. I've never waited a table. I taught some - I'll teach classes in improv or Shakespeare, but there's some motor in me that needs to do that.

I plan on having the credibility and integrity of being a part of an entertainment news program like 'E!,' in addition to being on the actor side as well.

Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.