I would never say anything derogatory about another actor even in my sleep.
I worked with Roger Moore on three episodes of ‘The Saint.’ He is a lovely man, a good director, and was my favourite actor to work with.
Thanks to ‘Eega,’ people respect me as actor. That abundance of respect is what pulls me towards cinema.
There is a deep camaraderie of insecurity between us actors. You rehash choices you’ve made among those who are close to you and inevitably bang your head against the wall when you finally figure out the scene… a day after you shot it!
Working in film tends to isolate actors – it’s your close-up; it’s all about you.
Broadway is the actor’s Mt. Everest – but with more flattering frocks.
The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.
Hollywood is where they shoot too many pictures and not enough actors.
Actors live dependent on being validated by other people’s opinions. I don’t understand what it is I do that people want. I don’t know what an actor does. I have no credentials. I don’t know what I’m doing.
I never really had that father figure to look up to. I think that’s the reason I’m so ambitious. I felt like I wasn’t appreciated as a child so I wanted to prove my worth as an adult, as an actor.
I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol.
On ‘Old School,’ I was not an actor, I was Snoop Dogg, so I came to the set with a whole different vibe, and a different crew of people. And on ‘Starsky and Hutch,’ I was more of an actor. I wasn’t Snoop Dogg, the rapper.
My husband is an actor, and we don’t talk about acting at home.
We’re actors. We’re the opposite of people.
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication.
I personally believe the film turns out better when shot in one short schedule, plus it doesn’t stress the actors.
The most important film I made, in terms of its subject and the great responsibility I had as an actor, was a film I did about the founder of Pakistan called ‘Jinnah.’
An actor’s off-screen persona should never overshadow his on-screen characters.
The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them.
There are two main jobs in acting – the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you’re a good actor.
An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays.
Telugu and Tamil actors have been so open-hearted and warm in welcoming me to be part of their industries. This appreciation from such people means a lot to me.
I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they’re running the asylum.
I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
I’ve grown so much, not just as an actor, but as a human being.
I’m good at reading people. If I wasn’t an actor, I would be a psychologist.
As a producer, sitting on the other side of the desk, I have never once had an agent go out on a limb for his client and fight for him. I’ve never heard one say, ‘No, just a minute! This is the actor you should use.’ They will always say, ‘You don’t like him? I’ve got somebody else.’ They’re totally spineless.
Naga Shaurya is a silent person and doesn’t talk to anyone on the sets. But when he faces the camera, he is a different person altogether. As an actor, he is very mature.
I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don’t know, I think it’s important.
Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there’s a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.
I’ve often wondered about people that come to the profession late in life. I’ve wanted to be an actor since the first grade. I watched a play being performed by the third grade class, and it was… magic.
Every actor craves choice.
I’m not an actress who’s a fan of gratuity, so I don’t seek projects that have nudity for nudity’s sake. I don’t know any actors who do, unless they’re in ‘Spartacus.’
I had a lot of friends who dreamed of being actors, and as I hung out with them, I became more interested in it.
If you’re a movie actor, you’re on your own – you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.
Working with animals forces an actor to work harder because you have to be quick when it comes to improvisation, and you can’t break character – at all.
I was born in Mumbai, but I grew up in England, and then my adulthood has been in the States. I’m an American stuffed with an English person with an Indian person inside. I feel like those things kind of inform me in some way, which I think helps me as an actor.
I worked a lot on ‘Conan’ as an actor, and when I moved to New York, a lot of my friends were on the first staff of that show. I started doing bit parts, which was the first thing I’d done on camera in front of a live audience.
That is the thing that wrestling is, we are who we are. Even when we are established we are not actors. We are wrestlers.
You have to find it in the moment, and that’s one of the challenges of being an actor – especially a film actor – is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There’s no trick to it. You just have to do.
I’ve had some rank auditions where I embarrassed myself to new heights, which is hard for me to do. I was never good at auditioning. There are a number of actors over the years come up the ranks who are horrific at auditioning.
You need some insecurity if you’re an actor. It keeps the pot boiling. I haven’t yet started to think about retiring. I was shocked when I heard about Paul Newman retiring at age 82. Most actors just fade away like old soldiers.
Will Smith is my favorite actor, because he has so much variety in his career. He’s done all types of roles, played in all types of worlds, and to me, that’s the fun of acting. That’s why I started doing it when I was eight years old, because you get to be whatever you want.
As an actor, you think you know your craft, you know the conflicts in your character, but often you don’t.
I don’t read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers.
If I had to control what I was speaking, it would be a chore. Right now I just feel I’ve got my shoes off, everybody comes in, I talk. If I was an actor it could be a problem, but right now I just talk all the crap, I can badmouth anybody I want, I can say what I want and move on.
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be an actor.
A lot of people try to paint this child actor stigma, but I always looked at it as a great opportunity.
I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn’t make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.
There is less pressure as a character actor. It generally means that you will be acting for all of your life, which is my intention. It is not my intention to just be a rich and famous person, that would be pretty boring.
I remember being in college knowing I didn’t want to go anymore. I wanted to try and become an actor. There is a something in me, with a risk of sounding cliche, that I just had to do it. I knew from an early age that acting was my path.
To be a good actor… it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished.
Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.
I think what makes a good actor’s director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.
In an era of global value chains, worldwide sourcing and the never-ending search for new markets, we must be careful to avoid the proliferation of regional standards. A multilateral approach holds wider benefits for more actors.
Dates with actors, finally, just seemed to me evenings of shop talk. I got sick of it after a hile. So the more famous I became, the more I narrowed down my choices.
What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors – who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page – is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.
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.
I often think that could we creep behind the actor’s eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.
I think, often, child actors are, like, overlooked a little bit.
It’s really a testament to my parents, because I was active, curious and creative as a child, and my parents nurtured that. But I wouldn’t say that I was a professional child actor at all. I was never the breadwinner of my family.
