Top 625 Acting Quotes

I like to feel that something’s alive in acting, like something’s really going on.

When I started comedy, I was a big Eddie Murphy fan. I thought if you did stand-up, you were supposed to know how to act, write, and host. I thought it was all one thing. That’s why it doesn’t feel like I’m transitioning to acting: because in my stand-up, I do characters all the time.

I can watch a movie and go, ‘Oh, my god, that person is acting.’ If you just listen to what the other person is saying, your response will always be genuine.

The most interesting thing about acting is when you go to the dark places, that’s a lot of energy. When you go to the happiest places, it’s also a lot of energy.

Having an interview in English is difficult for me, but acting in English is much harder. Because when I’m acting in English, if someone points out bad pronunciation or accent, I cannot focus on my emotions anymore, so it was very hard.

I was 36, and I had decided to quit acting because it was so disappointing.

The audience has reacted well to my comic timing. But, I also have other aspects to my acting talent.

The correct strategy in heads-up poker is based on identifying and acting upon your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.

An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props – and actors love props – is a cigarette. There’s so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It’s just the greatest – ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I’ve been playing around with cigarettes.

In acting class, you’re trained to express yourself as much as you can.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it. You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.

Logotherapy sees the human patient in all his humanness. I step up to the core of the patient’s being. And that is a being in search of meaning, a being that is transcending himself, a being capable of acting in love for others.

I guess I was a child actor. Acting was one of the things I did alongside going to school: I’d be playing guitar, I’d be playing soccer, and I would be acting in movies.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

Acting must be scaled down for the screen. A drawing room is a lot smaller than a theatre auditorium.

The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.

Acting’s incredibly enjoyable, but sometimes it doesn’t feel quite enough. I’ve also written a script about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This will make me sound like a female Kenneth Branagh, but I can’t think of anything nicer than directing myself from a script I wrote.

Acting has always been such escapism for me.

We saw the band as an acting job – it was an extension of ‘Byker Grove.’ We were even still called PJ and Duncan.

I took acting classes, and I’m always trying to improve myself. Everyone can improve, and the more you work in the industry, the better you are going to feel about it.

Earlier, I used to charge territories instead of my fees as an actor, but I realised it was better to keep the two apart. Now, I take my fees in cash, for acting, and keep the distribution thing separate.

I didn’t fall in love with acting until I did a few films. Now, I couldn’t live without it.

Being Michael Jordan means acting the same as I always have.

As a kid, I was into music, played guitar in a band. Then I started acting in plays in junior high school and just got lost in the puzzle of acting, the magic of it. I think it was an escape for me.

I don’t plan my acting. If I had to copy someone, it would be someone like the legendary Sridevi. I am really bad at copying people. I am very spontaneous.

One must take things lightly, after all, we are entertainers and acting isn’t rocket science. The trick is, not to take criticism to the heart or analyse things too much.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ‘Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

I suddenly think the job of acting is a difficult one. It’s not as flip, irrelevant and shallow a calling as I thought it was in the Eighties.

Yes, I was actually an acting teacher for a while.

There are so many actresses I want to write for. I see them, and I think, ‘Why is she not playing that lead? What’s happened to that actress?’ I think all I can do is to write parts for women, to say, ‘Keep going, keep acting, because there are parts for you. There will be those plays.’

Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

I don’t want to discredit people’s individuality, but I think people are pretty much the same. People are very similar. If you have a good enough imagination then you can feel things that you personally have never done before. That’s acting.

I do tend to like movies that challenge me professionally. That’s mostly on a smaller scale, when you have one or two or five actors, and it’s all about the acting and not the camera.

‘Evening Shade’ was such an eye-opening experience. I was 19 when I went on that show. I had barely had an acting class. So as Burt Reynolds continued to bring me back for the next three years, I learned so much from him and all the other legends that were on the show.

Honestly, if acting never worked out, I would have done music.

I am in movies basically for the money, and frankly, I have a hard time believing those who say they act for the love of acting!

Acting is invigorating. But I don’t analyse it too much. It’s like a dog smelling where it’s going to do its toilet in the morning.

So anyway, I’ve learned a lot about myself just in terms of acting but just work ethic and interesting things like full-page monologues or talking straight into camera, which I had never gotten to do before.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

The hardest part of acting is not being guaranteed work. Every job could be your last.

To those acting against peace, civilization and the world order: We will oppose you.

When I’m acting, it’s like I am the character – no one can talk to me. But I’m not so method I’d sell my house and live on the street to play a tramp.

I was lined up to do this honors degree course in biology, of all things, for no better reason than I got high marks in it. I decided I didn’t want to be removing worms’ hearts for the rest of my life in Northern Ontario. I thought I would try acting. So, I went to England to study drama. I got Shakespeared out.

I came to L.A. with confidence in my craft, and I was very offended when I didn’t get a part. It took me awhile to understand that it is not always about your acting.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.

Opponents of capital punishment argue that the state has no right to take a murderer’s life. Apparently, one fact that abolitionists forget or overlook is that the state is acting not only on behalf of society, but also on behalf of the murdered person and the murdered person’s family.

I had never really acted before, so I really didn’t know what I was doing. The casting director for ‘Euphoria’ set me up with an acting coach in New York, and he completely flipped my world around. The way you learn to utilize your brain and your emotions really freaked me out.

To me, acting is the most logical way for people’s neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves.

I’m enjoying it, but I still don’t know why I’m hooked on acting.

When I was younger, acting, singing and dancing was what it was all about. That’s really what kept me in school because I was really naughty otherwise.

I never took acting classes, but I knew I could do it based on the skill with which I lied to my parents on a regular basis!

I could live my whole life being so comfortable doing things I’ve already worked hard to not be nervous at, or I could continue to push the envelope and make myself uncomfortable and learn and see what I’m capable of, and acting is definitely that.

If I’m still acting at 46, I’ll be surprised.

My mom and dad always taught acting, so instead of getting me babysitters, they would just bring me to class.

Well, from an acting point of view, I bear no relation, I don’t look like Alfred Kinsey at all, but I thought somewhere in my artist’s soul, my actor’s soul, I could capture something of the spirit of the man.

Acting is the most difficult job in the world.

I moved to London when I was 18 to develop my acting career, but I still love going home to Ireland to recharge my batteries.

In modeling, because you’re the center of attention, it builds up people’s egos. Sometimes people lose touch with reality. But that happens with acting, too.