Quotes About Actors

There are actors that are really fine actors but not good auditioners. There are really good auditioners that may not be great actors. There are great actors that are really good auditioners, too. I happen to be someone who's not a great auditioner, but usually on a set can hold my own.

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

If you grow up poor you're always going to worry about money, no matter how successful or lucky you become. I'm not moaning about what actors get paid - I'm very, very lucky - but the difference between what leading actors get paid and supporting actors get is a lot.

I'd love to perform with other actors and act with actors, true actors. I would like to be in a movie and have full room for acting.

I think casting is really important. Finding the right sensibility for the right part is an art in itself. If you're off there, you make it harder on yourself as a director. And it's fun to work that out with the actors. I don't think there's any magic to directing actors. It's very instinctual. Working with actors is really one of my favorite creative moments of the whole process, and the most fun, because it's collaborative. I spend a lot of time rehearsing. I'm very rehearsal-oriented, probably because I have some background in theater. I like knowing what will work beforehand.

There's a lot of great writing, and characters, and stories being told in television nowadays. And much more than there used to be. The opportunities to tell stories, because of the opportunities to show content. And so it's drawing actors from cinema, movie actors, actors to where there's a lot of opportunities to where you can tell stories.

Imported actors, like certain wines, sometimes do not stand the ocean trip. This can be as true of American actors in Europe as it is of European actors in America.

You're always going to have ups and downs - if you look at the careers of a whole bunch of people I respect, some of them have good movies, some of them have bad movies. I remember Andrew Garfield said that the only power we really have as actors - or one of the main powers we have as actors - is our choices. We can make interesting choices, but as soon as you've made that choice, so much else is in play: the director, the script can change, the other actors. All you can do is try to make interesting choices and, once you're in it, just do the best you can.

I learned a lot from Clint [Eastwood], who's an extremely economic director. I learned a lot from Michael Winterbottom, who really gave a lot of trust in the actors and allowed them to live in the space instead of trying to manipulate and make it too set and too staged. Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot of being an actors' director and what that is. I've learned a lot from pretty much everybody. Hopefully I've picked up something from everybody I've worked with.

I don't want to know about the lives of other actors and I don't want people to know too much about me. If we don't know about the private lives of other actors, that leaves us as clean slates when it comes to playing characters. That's the point, they can create these other characters and I can believe them. I think if you're a good enough actor, that's the way to longevity in the film business. Keep everybody guessing.

I think it's great to see how they've grown up, not just as actors but as people. They're still very much the same kids that I met many years ago. They've grown up and they are funny and wicked and naughty and bright, and I think as actors their work is just getting better and better. They've blossomed.

The Muppets have such a great tradition of bringing together all of genres of actors and all ages of actors.

I've always thought that when anyone receives an award for acting they should always thank their fellow actors, because the only way you're going to deliver your best performance is when you have other good actors on the set supporting you and being very present for you even when the camera is not on them.

It doesn't matter if you work with an Oscar winner or if you work with an unknown actor. There is always a collaboration between the director and the actors, and you always have to listen as the actors have to listen to you as a director.

I watch the energy between the actors. That's the most thrilling and interesting thing to me about watching a movie, what the actors are doing.

In enforcement, you always have to have both a focus on the really worst actors - you know, gang bangers, in this case, drug dealers, that sort of thing - but also routine enforcement because think about, for instance, the IRS. They don't say, OK, well, if you're not a money launderer, it doesn't matter whether you fill your tax return out right or not. They have both. They go after the really bad actors and they have a kind of general, routine enforcement.

Actors are different. Some actors play themselves very successfully, but I come from the theater. Having done Shakespeare, we sometimes did three or four characters in the same play.

I like being around actors. Imagine not liking actors.

I'm not just friends with fellow actors, but I find that a lot of people are out here in L.A. I go out of my way to make sure that's not the case, but I do have a lot of friends who are actors.

Back 20 years ago, there was a division between movie actors and TV actors. That's kind of gone away. People who have had a lot of success in movies in the past now want to be on TV. There used to be much more of a quality division between TV and movies, and that's kind of not the case anymore.

I was very familiar with both actors, as well as Christina Hendricks and Bill Sage, Jimmi Simpson, Polly McIntosh, but the other main actors were new to me. And they were all terrific. Just amazing. Actually, Lowell Northrop optioned Savage Season from me, first book in the series, and I wrote a screenplay.

A lot of actors never talk to other actors about how they're doing things, or why. I think it's important to share the way you're thinking.

All actors do that. Should do that and do that. For the most part. I say all actors. I'm exaggerating, but you know who does and who doesn't. Vince is a wonderful young actor who knows his work and did a beautiful job on this film.

My circle of friends are not actors at all. None of them are actors, really, because they're are not available. They're always off somewhere.

The Dutch film industry is a pretty small community, so within Holland, I think most actors know each other and have worked with each other. The actors that are working internationally - that's a small number.

It's very rare that you get a part that you actually like. People have a misconception, whether it be because actors lie or because you're reading interviews from giantly, massively famous actors, but you don't just get offered parts, all the time. You actually have to work to get them.

I find it rather tedious working with some actors who have to go into a corner and bounce up and down, shake their hands and arms, saying to the director, "Just a second - I'll be ready in a few minutes, " while all the other actors are waiting around to get in. Then they say, "OK! I'm ready now." And then they come on and do it exactly the same way they've done it in rehearsal.

I just can't say enough about the actors having faith and trust in the writers and the writers having faith and trust in the actors.

There's lots of incredible roles out there that I'd love to tackle, but there's a select group of actors I find myself gravitating towards, like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis - real transformational actors.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look.

We're well aware, and we have been for a long time, that there is a real threat from adversaries, state actors, non-state actors, to hack us, influence us, destroy stuff through cyber means. Because cyber threat has been understood for a while, it's longstanding, it's a concern.

A lot of British actors will look at America as a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.

One of the things that I really love about doing a film is working with actors and the whole casting process. I feel I'm not looking for actors. I feel I'm looking for characters. If the characters come from Bollywood, fine. If they come from Indian theater, perfect.

AMC has a track record for finding actors who have been working actors but not names yet and casting them.

I would like to see fewer actors modeling, or if they're going to model to the extent that they are modeling, then I think that models should be actors.

Every film you work on is different, and that's part of what it's like for anybody who works on a film, is to learn how to work with others. Learn from top to bottom. Actors have to learn how to work with the director and the director has to learn how to work with actors, and that's not just those two departments.

Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. We are tied down by a tiny little country - Iraq. It's amazing, given the disparity in military economic strength. It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them.

Most actors are very deeply passionate about their line of work. I suppose there are probably people who sell insurance policies that are passionate about it, but I'm thinking the ratio is a little higher for actors. But, I may be wrong.

I think actors like to be directed. Actors like to know where they're headed and what they want, so I'm very encouraging.

There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

I enjoy comedic things. People don't understand it's the hardest thing to do. We have a ratio of 25-to-1 between good dramatic actors and people who are considered good comic actors.

I love actors. I enjoy their company, and I get excited each and every time they bring a character I've written to life. Every so often a talented actor doesn't hook in correctly to a character; or someone gets lost in a labyrinth of over-complicated thoughts, and the character and play suffer. However, most of the time I find actors either end up doing exactly what was in my head, or sometimes do something even better.

I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child.

I think all actors are supposed to be character actors.

Film just chews up actors like nobody's business, and I'm not particularly interested in being chewed up. I think the camera can only look at somebody's face for so long. I guess you have to accept the roles you think are right at the time. You can build a career, but these days there doesn't seem to be that much interest in people being actors.

I went to USC for writing. I was judgmental of actors and their Starbucks and fancy cars.

I call myself a character actor all my life. I've done a certain amount as a leading man, but character actors in my estimation - it's a lost art these days.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.