About Acting Quotes

#1. I used to ask Sean questions about acting. He's a brilliant actor, but I could never digest his information. I work primarily on an intuitive level.

Robin Wright

#2. The best thing about acting is when you're playing a scene and you actually become your character and lose yourself in that moment. That's when you know you've been succeeded at what you've worked very hard to accomplish in your profession. Those are the truly thrilling moments.

Meryl Streep

#3. I love challenging myself, doing different things and exploring different areas that I haven't been to or gone to before. That's what I love about acting, and that's what I love about film.

Taylor Lautner

#4. One actor in my life is enough, and that's me. With actors, it's too easy to go into this world of complaining. Someone will always be better, richer, more loved, do more work. Those dynamics don't interest me. The friends I hang out with, we create our own work rather than complain about acting.

Bojana Novakovic

#5. One good thing about acting in film is that it's good therapy.

Denzel Washington

#6. When you get a role, you completely lose yourself in it. That's one of the great things about acting - letting yourself go.

Molly Quinn

#7. The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.

Ben Whishaw

#8. That's the thing about acting - you can't fake it.

Eve Hewson

#9. I went to college for one semester, and I took every subject I could, and I ended up failing. So I thought to myself, Ever since I was a kid, I've loved expression - and that's when I started thinking about acting.

Derek Luke

#10. I enjoy doing things that involve research because it's part of what I enjoy about acting.

Michael Sheen

#11. That's what I like about acting. When you're preparing for a role, you do your research, and the bonus is you get to learn these skills. Now, it's on to whatever the next thing is I have to learn.

Parminder Nagra

#12. I think a lot of directors, they come out of film school, they don't know anything about acting. Or they're writers that don't know anything about the process. And I think they're afraid sometimes to talk to actors and be honest with actors.

Matt Dillon

#13. John was the smartest and most amazing comedian I've ever worked with. I think more than teaching me about acting or comedy, he taught me about life and the love of people and respect of people.

Kaley Cuoco

#14. There's so much crap talked about acting.

Ben Kingsley

#15. Vadim changed my mind about acting. Vadim was the only man who was certain I had something special to offer.

Brigitte Bardot

#16. What I've learned about acting is that it needs to be mysterious. If you overthink how a beat needs to be played, it can trip you up.

Kate Winslet

#17. Everything I'm teaching you about acting has one aim only: to fire you up emotionally and behaviorally so that you can give a vivid, involving, and memorable performance.

Larry Moss

#18. I remember Julianne Moore talking about acting and she said, "I'm just looking for truth. When people watch, they're not looking to see me. They're looking to see themselves." That's one of my new favorite sayings

Ryan Hurst

#19. You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.

John Fowles

#20. I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that, I'm talking about people I admire, whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever.

Benicio Del Toro

#21. I never really thought about acting as a child. It wasn't like, "This is the career that I want to pursue." So when I first started acting, I was more concerned with just being on a set and all of the woes of that, and I didn't really know it or understand it as a craft yet.

Blake Lively

#22. But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman.

Shelley Duvall

#23. It's fatal to talk about acting. It sounds faintly ridiculous if you start analysing it.

Jim Broadbent

#24. You give, actually, what you have in your inner world through your emotion and feeling. That's what you can give; it's not so much about "acting" in a sense of playing something that's very different to you.

Charlotte Rampling

#25. The idea of transformation - playing something I'm not - is the bit I enjoy most about acting.

Mark Strong

#26. It's funny, when you become an actor and you're successful, they don't want to talk about acting any more. 'Hey let's talk about that stuff you were fired from.'

Nicholas Brendon

#27. The thing about acting is you don't want to let on how enjoyable it is or then everybody would want to become an actress. But it really is. It's a pleasure to go and exchange your identity.

Gena Rowlands

#28. Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

Christina Ricci

#29. The terrible thing about acting is the stops and starts.

Anjelica Huston

#30. The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it." - Charles Spurgeon "We are more concerned about looking stupid (fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (fear of the Lord)." - Edward T. Welch

Randy Alcorn

#31. But you're right, I did think about acting more and then decided against it.

Todd Solondz

#32. I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me.

Emma Watson

#33. It [love about acting] is all about role playing - the same thing you do when you're a kid, when you play with dolls or toys and make up stories. I never grew out of it.

Morgan Freeman

#34. I am a coward, basically, but one of the things about acting is that you are always putting yourself through yet another test.

Samuel West

#35. My parents are a big help, and they're always making sure I have a normal life and my life isn't all just about acting and stuff.

Cayden Boyd

#36. What I find most interesting about acting is transforming myself.

Helen McCrory

#37. One of the fun things for me, about acting, is trying to transform. Transformational acting was the reason why I became an actor, in the first place.

Matt Ross

#38. The early years were more about learning than about acting.
I had to carry on my father's work, which was a big challenge.

Azim Premji

#39. The thing is, if I try to talk about acting, I come off as moaning. But I'm privileged. I think it's all about control. Acting is vulnerable because you're not in control of anything. You have to give up a lot of your trust; it's up to somebody else what they do with what you've given them.

Paddy Considine

#40. There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again.

Freddie Stroma

#41. Fame is probably the most unadorable thing about acting.

Zac Efron

#42. The thing I like a lot about acting is I'll never learn enough. I'll never know it inside and out.

Dylan O'Brien

#43. The good thing about acting is that it always keeps you on your toes ... It's not like any other job where you can go in and do the same thing as yesterday.

Leonardo DiCaprio

#44. I want to discover more things about acting.

Emily Mortimer

#45. The thing about acting is you have to wait to be asked to the dance.

Ben Mendelsohn

#46. The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living.

Christopher Walken

#47. I'm very serious about acting.

Victor Garber

#48. Learning about acting for camera is really quite exciting to engage with and deal with.

George Blagden

#49. I've never been passionate about acting, and I find more and more that I work to live the life I want to live. There's something about the detachment I have, the feeling of the lack of importance about what I do, that is healthy.

Jeremy Irons

#50. What I like about acting is that you can be a different person every day.

Allegra Versace

#51. I've always liked to be a meat and potatoes kind of actor who doesn't believe in any of the highfalutin stuff about acting, so I tend to be a little bit more cynical.

Anthony Hopkins

#52. That's what I always enjoyed about acting, the real adrenalin rush. My heart - still before I go on stage - crashing out of my chest. That's thrilling to me.

Billy Crudup

#53. I'm a young actor and I haven't learned everything there is about acting.

Lucas Neff

#54. The thing I love about acting is getting to change and look at different people in different lives and do different projects.

Keira Knightley

#55. I study English literature but my friends are doing psychology and things like that. No one cares about acting there. It's not competitive and it's a nice environment for me.

Yasmin Paige

#56. Acting is something that I've done since I was so young. I always felt - certainly as a teenager - really cynical about acting. I definitely didn't feel like it was something I wanted to do, and so I really took it for granted.

Sarah Polley

#57. I love the process of discovering a new world - that's why I'm passionate about acting. It's just discovering life, feelings, ideas and thought.

Alice Braga

#58. I really have very little aspirations about acting because I think that probably the best things have come and gone. I would like to focus on writing and directing. I love writing and directing even though writing can be incredibly painful and lonely. I get great satisfaction from doing it.

Sylvester Stallone

#59. Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times. I don't want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It's funny finding what's challenging about acting as you go.

Allison Williams

#60. The interesting thing about acting is using all your own stuff and having some kind of personal catharsis while you're working.

Melanie Lynskey

#61. I started writing plays in around 1967, and at a certain point, I thought, 'I'm writing plays, I should learn about acting and what it is.' So I went to the HB Studio in New York, and I was there for about nine months.

Wallace Shawn

#62. I'm always changing and learning about acting, and about myself. I just hope to always keep doing that.

Jane Levy

#63. I've always been passionate about acting. I haven't been passionate about being famous.

David Alpay

#64. When I'm acting, that's all I'm doing. When I'm not acting, I'm not thinking about acting. If I'm writing, I'm just writing.

Hill Harper

#65. After 'Prom Night' I did two movies where I was playing a prostitute. I gravitate towards characters that have some sort of inner turmoil or some sort of character arc. That's the great thing about acting, so many different things and being really diverse in your choices.

Brittany Snow

#66. There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

Lupita Nyong'o

#67. Remember, acting is not a business of glamour. It is science, craft and an art. Read about acting; don't do it for the sake of fun. Actors such as Paresh Rawal and Naseeruddin Shah are great examples; they are surviving only because they have read well.

Boman Irani

#68. You know, the great thing about acting or, indeed, filmmaking in general, is that we're all given a reason to do research. You kind of have to, really, if you want to know what you're doing, but it opens up this whole new understanding.

Danny Huston

#69. The only really good thing about acting in movies is that there's no heavy lifting.

Cary Grant

#70. It's not just about acting. I love film, I'm a director now, I love writing, I love producing, I love having a company that makes films and to be prolific and have a place to put all the ideas that are constantly bubbling up inside of me and that don't let me sleep at night.

Drew Barrymore

#71. The beautiful thing about acting is that you can just dive into the character, strip yourself of everything, and just get in there and perfect your craft.

Nick Cannon

#72. Everything I've ever learned about acting - and I went to theater school - was about playing what the character wants and throwing yourself fully into going after what the character wants.

J. August Richards

#73. I went through two schools of acting but I learned more about acting from meditating and from my marshall arts teacher.

Forest Whitaker

#74. The thing I like most about acting is that it entertains people. Films and TV can also offer such comfort to people ... TV especially, because it's in people's homes and they can watch it at home. It offers them insights into different cultures and ideas, which I think is great.

Yasmin Paige

#75. Would you just strap some toe shoes on and dance 'Swan Lake?' No. Would you just put a violin in your hand and - ? No. I felt that way about acting, and I was taught to feel that way. I didn't come to it on my own.

Ellen Barkin

#76. We are more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (a fear of God).

Edward T. Welch

#77. I wanted to be an actor my whole young life. My dad was an actor, obviously - he won an Academy Award, but I had no idea what was involved. I had all the wrong ideas about acting.

Ed Begley Jr.

#78. The honest truth is - and I have felt this way forever - is my largest competitor is myself. Always. I am intimidated by my own hang-ups about acting more so than anything, any part, any director.

Portia Doubleday

#79. I went to college and stage school, and thought about acting, but ... I just don't like actors very much! They're not as fun as musicians.

Martha Wainwright

#80. That's what I love about acting, is playing different roles. I want to work for the character, and not make it work for me.

Fran Kranz

#81. I wasn't really serious about acting - I was serious about baseball.

Kurt Russell

#82. I don't think I know enough about acting to direct. You need to be a slight megalomaniac, not where you want to take over the world, but where you want to make every single decision and the buck stops with you. It's an awful lot of stress.

Matthew Goode

#83. One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

Jessica Lange

#84. There's this weird thing about acting where you have to wait for somebody to ask you to do it; like you have to wait for a director to say it's okay.

Tom Sturridge

#85. If one thing that bothers me about acting, it's that there's no clear-cut number one. The closest you can get is winning an Academy Award, and I'm going to work on that if it takes me the next 50 years. To my peers, it will mean that I'm the best!

Dana Hill

#86. At 23 it was all about acting. Today it's getting my kids to school, making sure that they've done their homework. I'm in my fifties, and I'm turning into a square.

Gary Oldman

#87. I think there are certain technical things about acting that change between working in film and television. Everything definitely slows down and we have more time in film.

Thomas McDonell

#88. There's that great thing about acting - you're wearing your heart on your sleeve, and you're speaking off the cuff. You know, you're fearless about it, and - and it's great. And I love it.

Chris Eigeman

#89. I don't think I have one iota of cynicism about acting.

Donald Sutherland

#90. I remember my first actor that I really, really fell in love with was Tom Hanks. I suppose when I was growing up and getting more serious about acting, at that point, he was the biggest actor in the world.

Iain De Caestecker

#91. These kids only want to talk about acting method and motivation. in my day all we talked about was screwing and overtime.

Robert Mitchum

#92. If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

#93. I still don't really think about acting that much. I just do it.

Anna Paquin

#94. Perhaps we could push beyond these legalistic gender roles if we spent less time worrying about "acting like men" and "acting like women," and more time acting like Jesus.

Rachel Held Evans

#95. I don't usually like talking about acting or what my process is, and all those kinds of things, because I don't necessarily think it's helpful to talk about how I do my job.

Lennie James

#96. It's always a bit overwhelming when you arrive on set and everyone's new, but you soon become a big family. I find the hardest thing about acting is that you have to say goodbye to everyone at the end of a shoot.

Nicholas Hoult

#97. A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time.

Val Kilmer

#98. We'll all retire from life at some point. The great thing about acting is you don't necessarily have to retire.

Denzel Washington

#99. The thing that I love about acting is the fact that I can help people feel things, know themselves or feel less alone. It's my form of expression, in the same way that someone might paint a picture or sing a song in that you're hoping that it moves somebody outside of their own way of thinking.

Naomi Watts

#100. One of the nice things about acting is that it allows you to open up to the other people within you.

David Duchovny