Best 3782 quotes in «acting quotes» category

Anyone can act if he has the will to do so, and anyone who says he wants to but doesn't have the knack for it suffers from a lack of will, not a lack of talent.

Anything creative requires a bit of acting,and filling in blanks with imagination.

Any show that breaks the monotony works. If the end product is good, nothing can stop it from being successful.

Anyway, that's why you do it. Not to be famous, just to be good. To do good work. Find the thing you really love doing, and do it to the best of your ability.

A real actor can’t love anyone. Cause he/she only pretends to be lover. Cause he/she still in the role of a lover and doesn’t know how to love someone for the real.

Art doesn’t give rise to anything in us that isn’t already there. It simply stirs our curious consciousness and sparks a fire that illuminates who we have always wanted to be.

As a beginning actor, your focus should be on developing as an artist. An artist expresses original ideas. Or he expresses old ideas in an original way.

... as a convention, you get up and walk to the window to make the audience believe that you're looking out. It's for the audience, not for you! And what it means to you is something emotional [...] If you went to the Actors Studio you'd spend six months seeing the snow before you could say, 'Look at the snow.' This takes a terrible burden away from the actor, who thinks he's got to see the woods and the snow. 'Give me my gun! I see a rabbit! Give me my gun!' " Meisner sounds thrilled at the possibility of a hunt. "That happens when you're still sitting there reading. Then when they put in the scenery you move to the window. Isn't that simple? How simple it is to solve the problem of seeing things when you know that it's all in you emotionally, and that walking to the window is only a convention.

As an actor, I’ve spent every second of my life performing to people who don’t talk back. They never speak back. Understand? Participating in conversations becomes one of the hardest things alive when you make a living performing one-sided ones.

As an adult, getting paid thousands of dollars a week to say, “Aye, Sir. Course laid in” is a seriously sweet gig, but when I was a teenager, it sucked.

As an actress, or actr-ish, I'm jealous of everyone, regardless of gender or age. Sometimes parents will ask me how they go about getting their kids into acting, and my first thought is never, Oh, how cute! It's always, Fuck your kid! I will fucking cut your kid! If they think they are just gonna waltz into a business that has bled my soul dry for over a decade and snag an NCIS: Los Angeles guest spot out from under me, they are gonna have to pry it out of my cold dead hands!

As everyone knows, in my profession we go around screwing each other as much as possible, mostly to see ourselves do it. Narcissists are always making love to number one.

At times, circumstances conspire to make us believe the lies we tell ourselves. Everything- the weather, the season, the fall of light- sets the stage for our play; we find ourselves, instead of acting, becoming the characters, moving into a reality in which we're inseparable from our roles.

Before I start a film or a play, I try to build a world in my mind. An imaginative world which the character lives in; and I create that with novels, with painting, with music, with films. I try and understand tone. Tone is so important. Is this a thriller, is this a Gothic romance, is this an action film, is this a love story? Then, once I understand that, I just jump into it. This might be like an incomplete way of describing it, but it's like I build a swimming pool, then I just dive in. Do you know what I mean?

Because she is an actress, she has fashioned an entire career out of identity theft.

But, as in sculpture, they were fond of dispensing as much as possible with dress, for the sake of exhibiting the more essential beauty of the figure; on the stage they would endeavour, from an opposite principle, to clothe as much as they could well do, both from a regard to decency, and because the actual forms of the body would not correspond sufficiently with the beauty of the countenance. They would also exhibit their divinities, which in sculpture we always observe either entirely naked, or only half covered, in a complete dress.

Being an actor is one of the hardest and easiest jobs a person can do. It is hard because you are always living as someone else. It is easy because your always living as someone else.

But if I hope to understand in order to accept things - the act of surrender will never happen. I must take the plunge all at once, a plunge that includes comprehension and especially incomprehension. And who am I to dare to think? What I have to do is surrender. How is it done? I know however that only by walking do you know how to walk and - miracle - find yourself walking.

But if I'm not acting, why would I live in Los Angeles? I want to live somewhere I can be free.

By drinking, a boy acts like a man. After drinking, many a man acts like a boy.

But I will relate what happened with absolute honesty; that, perhaps, will help me understand it. After all, when one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a person that observes and narrates it and no longer the person that performed it.

But this is not all. Even in a lively oral narration, it is not unusual to introduce persons in conversation with each other, and to give a corresponding variety to the tone and the expression. But the gaps, which these conversations leave in the story, the narrator fills up in his own name with a description of the accompanying circumstances, and other particulars. The dramatic poet must renounce all such expedients; but for this he is richly recompensed in the following invention. He requires each of the characters in his story to be personated by a living individual; that this individual should, in sex, age, and figure, meet as near as may be the prevalent conceptions of his fictitious original, nay, assume his entire personality; that every speech should be delivered in a suitable tone of voice, and accompanied by appropriate action and gesture; and that those external circumstances should be added which are necessary to give the hearers a clear idea of what is going forward. Moreover, these representatives of the creatures of his imagination must appear in the costume belonging to their assumed rank, and to their age and country; partly for the sake of greater resemblance, and partly because, even in dress, there is something characteristic. Lastly, he must see them placed in a locality, which, in some degree, resembles that where, according to his fable, the action took place, because this also contributes to the resemblance: he places them, i.e., on a scene. All this brings us to the idea of the theatre. It is evident that the very form of dramatic poetry, that is, the exhibition of an action by dialogue without the aid of narrative, implies the theatre as its necessary complement. We allow that there are dramatic works which were not originally designed for the stage, and not calculated to produce any great effect there, which nevertheless afford great pleasure in the perusal. I am, however, very much inclined to doubt whether they would produce the same strong impression, with which they affect us, upon a person who had never seen or heard a description of a theatre. In reading dramatic works, we are accustomed ourselves to supply the representation.

By Real Acting I mean “an imitation of human behavior that is both emotionally natural and mechanically precise enough as to elicit tears or laughter from humans.

Certain words, certain expressions. Things like ‘I love you’ and ‘I hate you.’ They’re big traps for actors. They can tempt you away from the connection you’ve developed with your partner and lead you into swamplands of clichéd performing. ‘Love’ and ‘hate’ are powerful words, and for some reason, we feel like we must fulfill them—and other words like them—whenever we say them. But we don’t have to.” Bill turns to Adam. “Actors hit that line—‘you know I’m absolutely crazy about you. Don’t you?’—and go all kablooey. Your head’s saying, ‘How can I not say a line like that without letting love swim into the duck pond? But inside you’re saying, ‘To hell will love! This girl’s really pissed me off, breaking off an important date like that.’ Follow your true inner response. It will never lead you astray. You’ll be bubbling up with impatience and irritation and you’ll say a line like that and it’ll have new meaning. It’ll have your meaning. Remember: Bad actors consciously adjust their inner responses to what they think the lines of the text require. Good actors adjust the text to the inner emotional line created by their sensitized responses to the other actor.” Adam says, “I get it. I was trying to act the words.” Bill nods. “You were manipulating yourself, cutting off our real response in order to live up to what you thought the text demanded of you. But any line can mean anything, and come out of you in any way.

Challenge anything that could step into your plans with the intention of acting as a resistance towards your fulfillment.

Death is just the last scene of the last act.

Character actor' is a technical term denoting a clever stage performer who cannot act, and therefore makes an elaborate study of the disguises and stage tricks by which acting can be grotesquely simulated.

COUNT ON ONLY 1 PERSON ..THE PERSON WHO YOU KNOW 100% WILL BE THERE WITH YOU WHEN YOU DRAW YOUR LAST BREATH OF LIFE...THAT PERSON YOU MUST COUNT ON IS YOU!

Darling, don't be silly, your whole future is ahead of you. All you have to do is go out there and ask for a part- something small and reasonable just to start with. From there, no one can stop you. Don't feel bad about anything you've done, and for God's sake, have fun.

Compassion, in its essence, is neutral. It’s holistic that way, and powerful because it yields a much wider perspective free of judgment or stress of any kind. We use it all the time in our work the way we’re always studying humanity intensely — always walking in someone else’s shoes, feeling the seams in their socks, wounds and elations in their souls.

Dear V., I'm a terrible actor and this city is fucking freezing and I miss you. - A.

DENIAL OF EMOTIONS Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain.

Despair is what happens when you think without acting.

Dogs, in fact, were perfect heroes: unknowable but accessible, driven but egoless, strong but tragic, limited by their muteness and animal vulnerability. Humans played heroes in films, too, but they were more complicated to admire because they were so particular—too much like us or too much unlike us or too much like someone we knew. Dogs, on the other hand, have the talent of seeming to understand and care about humans in spite of not being human and perhaps are better at it because of that difference. They are compassionate without being competitive, and there is nothing in their valor that threatens us, no demand for reciprocity. As Lee knew very well, a dog can make you feel complete without ever expecting much in return.

Doing nothing was as honourable as any available course of action. Think of Hamlet, think of Job, think of Jesus before Pilate.

Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

Do not recite words just to prove to yourself and others that you know and love God; for he already put his breath and light inside you. Instead, put truth in your every word and action, and always let your conscience steer and guide you.

Do not get down on your knees to pray just to show God that you always remember him. Instead stay on your feet, and always do as he would do in place of him.

Duke was not what you would call a natural actor, but he learned. And when he learned, he mastered one of the hardest things of all - to act natural. And he does it so well that a lot of people still don't know he's acting. - Paul Fix

Entertain, but also, give the viewer something to think about.

Emotions don’t interfere in my acting, nor in my life.

Emma, you and your poetry, me and my acting--what are we trying to do? We can't top this city. We poor would-be artists can't compete with or improve on the rich density of human experience on any random, average, slow summer night in New York--who are we trying to kid? In the overheard conversation in the elevator, in the five minutes of talk the panhandler gives you before hitting you for the handout, in the brief give-and-take when you are going out and the cleaning lady is coming in--there are the real stories, incredible, heartbreaking and ridiculous, there are the command performances, the Great American Novels but forever unwritten, untoppable, and so beautifully unaware.

Filmmaking has the power to fortify the feeble, unify the divided, raise the abandoned and inspire the ignorant.

Even the world’s greatest actor cannot fake an erection.

Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become stageworthy.

Even I don’t know myself... In fact, I don’t know if I really have a self at all, as I’m constantly playing different roles and pretending – not so much on stage as in real life...

Find a good teacher, don't betray yourself to succeed and be a better person before being a better actor.

Give people films, they will forget after a few weeks, but give people ideas, they will assimilate them into their consciousness.

Follow your body because most of the time it knows where to go.

Have a good looking is not worthy if you don't act just like your appearances.