Top 100 Acting School Quotes
#1. I like working one-on-one with someone, and I think that to go to a school of acting isn't really my thing.
Stella Maeve
#2. Acting and singing were just a hobby, but getting into drama school made me realise I could actually do it for a living.
Birgitte Hjort Sorensen
#3. I went to drama school at NYU for serious acting. So I was doing Chekov and Sam Shepard plays.
Casey Wilson
#4. I left the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin in 2004, and I did five years of theater after that.
Aidan Turner
#5. If I could go back to my first year of acting school, I'd probably say: 'Relax. Stop taking yourself so seriously.'
Seth Numrich
#6. With big, emotional roles it's very easy, especially if you've grown up in the American school of acting, to exploit your own pain. You have to be careful about that, because 9 times out of 10, your pain is not appropriate to the character.
Laura Linney
#7. I only took a high school acting class because there was no other class I wanted to take. I loved it, but I was always against acting as a profession. I didn't like the monetary fluctuations I saw.
Josh Brolin
#8. I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.
Dan Castellaneta
#9. It was easy for me to leave acting for school, because I wasn't really in it as an adolescent for fulfilling reasons.
Anna Chlumsky
#10. I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.
Robin Williams
#11. In high school, my goal was to be a writer for SNL, then I got into the acting.
Illeana Douglas
#13. My parents are the ones who really help me be grounded. I still go to school, I still do fun stuff with my friends; for the most part, I am a normal kid. It just so happens that I do some acting too!
Joshua Rush
#14. High school is just horrible in general. So, I think it was a good time for me to have stopped acting. I got to be normal in high school.
Jodie Sweetin
#15. At acting school people didn't speak like me. It was all received pronunciation - 'ow now brown cow.'
Ray Winstone
#16. I grew up in Bellport, Long Island where I attended Gateway Acting School and met Robin Allan. She was the school's director who took me under her wing and was the one who told me that I could do this for real.
Brendan Dooling
#17. I was bullied from grade one to six. Even middle school was tough for me. Everyone had these pre-existing friendships, and I was the new kid, who was acting, so that didn't help much either. It was really tough.
Devon Bostick
#18. I've never gone to acting school and I never will, so I'm learning about the business from the people who are in the business. It doesn't seem like I work at all. And the unknown is always exciting.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
#19. I've learned by watching films that inspired me and people who inspired me like Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I love old school acting. I love subtlety, and I also love being spontaneous, and that's really what works for me.
Alex Pettyfer
#20. School allowed me to have outlets so that some of the pressure was taken off the acting. Every role in every movie, I used to live or die by. Once I had these new outlets, I relaxed a lot more.
James Franco
#21. 'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.
Spike Lee
#22. I can tell that fame is probably the most unadorable thing about acting. High School Musical is what got me here today and I'm very grateful - but the fame part isn't so fun.
Zac Efron
#23. I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you're an actor, you know, don't really need to learn how to do it.
Patrick Macnee
#24. I wouldn't apply myself at school. I was quite bright, but I didn't do much with it, and I thought acting was dressing up and shouting for a living.
Michelle Gomez
#25. I've done 480-odd films, have my own acting school, won awards, etc. and now host a successful TV chat show - what else can I ask for? Yes, of course, every journey has its ups and downs, but that's part of life.
Anupam Kher
#26. The acting training in school was great, but it was mostly fun being young and in New York. Because my upbringing was so transient, New York ended up being my home. I've been living in New York longer than I have anywhere else in my life.
Pedro Pascal
#27. My experiences and training back at drama school were very enlightening. I always believe in improving, be it kathak or my acting skills, and would want to experiment more when it comes to work.
Jiah Khan
#28. Acting still rings my bell as much as it did in high school. Plus, I can now indulge my interests as a producer as well. My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it's still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire.
Tom Hanks
#29. At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.
Hugh Jackman
#30. When I came into the industry I started with acting and I did drama during junior high and high school. I fell into dancing as a hobby, but whenever you need work, you try out different things. So I booked a lot of jobs for dancing and it kept rolling and rolling.
Harry Shum Jr.
#31. After going to theater school, and then subsequently dropping out, I would say that when I first went to Chicago and learned long-form improv, that was a far better acting workshop than any acting school I've been to.
Thomas Middleditch
#32. I've been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you're comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone's going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity.
Viola Davis
#33. I didn't grow up wanting to be an actor, and I didn't go to acting school.
Paul Schneider
#34. I loved doing school musicals [as a kid], I even started at an early age to write little plays for the school to perform. I was not just keen on that, it was during that time, during the school period then from an early age, that I began to dream about acting.
George Ogilvie
#35. I used to spend a lot of time at football training, but that time was later spent in amateur acting classes and my local youth theatre, in plays at school and after-school clubs. That filled the void.
Sam Claflin
#36. Funnily enough, when I was leaving school and they asked you what you were going to do, and I just liked acting, that's never what I would say. I would always say I would go into business, even though I didn't really know what was meant by that.
Kylie Minogue
#37. I dropped out of school and I never took acting classes.
Alice Englert
#38. I went to a dentist for a toothache, and it turned out his kids were in an acting school. We talked about it, and I decided to enroll at the same school. I was 14. I guess you could say I just got lucky.
Nolan Gerard Funk
#39. I've only been acting since 2009 and I learn more and more with each job. I think I prepare and I'm very focused and I have a good work ethic that I learned in school.
Jenny Slate
#40. To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.
Michael Imperioli
#41. I have great respect for actors like Jodie Foster and Natalie Portman who went to school the entire time they were acting. All I did was one small little independent film, and I realised I couldn't balance both lives.
Nikki Reed
#42. I make two movies a year to take care of the butcher and the baker and the school fees. Then I try to write, but it's not that easy. Acting is what's easy.
David Niven
#43. I remember having friends in high school that did the theater department stuff, and I always wanted to try it but never had the guts to. I was the class clown but could never really build up the courage to try it. I took one acting class and really enjoyed it.
Robert Buckley
#44. I really love school, but I'd love to continue acting jobs if I can.
Georgie Henley
#45. I joined an acting class in my junior year in high school. I'd always wanted to try it.
Rainn Wilson
#46. I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.
Anthony Hopkins
#47. Balancing school, acting, and a social life can be difficult.
Emily Osment
#48. I went to acting school in New York City for two years. I studied with Stella Adler.
Judd Nelson
#49. I never went to acting school. I started in the circus, music hall, I was in a group, did kids' bits. I've always had this kind of insecurity being uneducated.
Rupert Graves
#50. I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.
Benedict Cumberbatch
#51. After I graduated high school and came out to do 'Buffy,' I was enrolled at my mom's university, and I was going to go get a real job. I never thought of acting and never really wanted to be an actor.
Eliza Dushku
#52. I talk about acting to students making the transition from high school to UCLA. Kids going into this profession really need to know the reality of it.
Loni Anderson
#53. I never went to school. I never went to acting school because I was so scared.
Ursula Andress
#54. I like singing as much as I like acting, and all through high school I thought I might be a Broadway singer.
Zooey Deschanel
#55. Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#56. I worked my butt off in high school and received a lot of scholarships for college and to throw all that away for acting was tough for my family, but it was just something I felt my heart pulling me towards and don't regret a single minute of it. I love to act!
Kellan Lutz
#57. The first acting thing I ever did was my senior year I decided not to play a sport in the Spring and, in that Spring B.J. Novak who went to school with me, asked if I'd be in this show that was a parody of all the teachers in the school, 'sure!' That was the first acting thing I did.
John Krasinski
#58. Acting is a lot of waiting to be picked, and I like to do a lot of things at once. I think I will have to find things that are totally mine. I have so much comfort that school and my academic life are totally mine. I hope that there's not a lot of idleness in my future.
Sarah Steele
#59. Yes, I did try acting when I was in high school and I was terrible at it. So I definitely have had the experience of being bad at artistic endeavor.
Dana Spiotta
#60. Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama ... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.
Andrea Anders
#61. I graduated from school for graphic design, and I started to get into acting class just to get over severe fright. I was an extremely shy person. I could barely say hello to anybody.
Trevor Donovan
#62. When I was a sophomore, a friend asked me to go to a local acting seminar with him. Two guys were very interested in me and wanted me to come out to L.A. I wanted to finish high school before doing anything like that. I figured they'd just forget about me, but they kept after me for two years.
Jensen Ackles
#63. I sang throughout school, and it was always my passion. For whatever reason, acting took the front seat, but all of the projects that I've been doing seem to have some sort of musical element to them.
Chrissie Fit
#64. I went to a public high school, and after graduation, college wasn't really much of an option for me. I didn't believe I had the money or the grades at the time, so I continued to work and save money to support my acting career.
Christie Laing
#65. I play guitar and sing when I'm not busy with school and acting.
Kaitlyn Dever
#66. I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but I started acting when I was 9 years old. I looked a certain part that I wasn't, really. I played, you know, a high school jock with a lot of attitude or a spoiled rich kid, and I was neither of those things. I was from a very working-class family in Van Nuys.
Steve Antin
#67. I'm not someone who went to acting school - I was just out of the gate, doing it.
Natasha Lyonne
#68. When I went to Los Angeles right after high school, I got some acting jobs, and I never, ever wanted to be an actress! Public speaking and acting make me want to vomit. But I have never been nervous singing. When it comes to public speaking, I stumble on my words, sweat, and pull at my clothes.
Kelly Clarkson
#69. In college, I went to school for acting; we had to learn phonetics just to be able to do dialects and all that stuff. I'm somebody who does better just hearing it. I'll just imitate it, and I get it better that way. When I know too much information, I'm not great.
Eliza Coupe
#70. I loved it, but had to forget about acting after elementary school because it was the sort of thing you just didn't do in my rough neighborhood.
Sherman Hemsley
#71. Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.
David Mamet
#72. To be honest, I never went to school for acting, and I never learned to break down a script. I took acting classes my whole life, but they never taught me anything about acting. They just taught me about myself.
Shailene Woodley
#73. One of the hard things in my life has been balancing my education with my acting career, because I've been acting since the age of seven, on and off, just doing little parts and things. I've always been very keen to stay in school.
Anna Popplewell
#74. It's funny to think that when you get done with an acting job, you're considered unemployed. There are definitely times when those checks don't last forever. I went to college at a private school, and I racked up quite a bit of debt. I was very slow to pay them back.
Rami Malek
#75. Most of all, I really wanted to become a filmmaker, and I've used every acting experience to just turn it into film school.
Jeremy Davies
#76. I wanted to stay in New York to pursue acting, but my dad urged me to get a four-year degree. Reading about the film school at Florida State University, he suggested I go there. I received my bachelor's degree in 2003.
Lauren Miller
#77. I never really did that well in school because I was so absorbed with doing acting.
Ansel Elgort
#78. My stepdad provided me with an amazing childhood. I played outside like a normal kid, I rode my bike, I walked to school, but the happiest times were when I was acting.
Demi Lovato
#79. I'd had an early stint in acting school, and there was something satisfying about becoming a character, about being inside another mind that you had to create out of yourself. As I moved toward a life in writing, I found many of the things I'd learned in acting school still applied.
Michael Redhill
#80. I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities.
Justin Bartha
#81. I've had a job since I was 11. I had a paper route, I worked at a video store, I was a toy doll at FAO Schwartz when I was in high school. And I think that it's made me really disciplined when it came to pursuing acting, because I had no clue how to go about it.
Cara Buono
#82. You know, back in acting school they always teach you, 'Make bold choices and look for activities that are interesting.'
Mickey Rourke
#83. I acted all the way up until Princeton. It was just one of my favorite extracurricular activities. Then I got to Princeton and had a really conservative vibe. All my friends were planning on law school, med school, or Wall Street, and suddenly acting seem like a really risky proposition.
Wentworth Miller
#84. The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.
Tony Curtis
#85. I'm a bit of a fraud, really, as I didn't study acting at a drama school.
Celia Imrie
#86. Sometimes when I'm not working, I go and teach at an acting school, and quite selfishly, that makes me feel more inspired to do things myself.
Chris Geere
#87. I was like the class clown in school so I guess I would say I did like the attention. In church I did a lot of plays, my mother made me play characters, do a lot of drama and acting, trying to become someone else. So it helped me create who I am, to create Snoop Dogg.
Snoop Dogg
#88. There are some subjects in school that I love, but it can still feel like a chore. Acting never feels like a chore.
Sierra McCormick
#89. Watching my stepfather and mother working in the industry - acting and composing - and seeing firsthand how difficult it is to achieve a successful career in the theater, I thought it might be safer to go to art school with the aim of becoming a painter.
Juliet Rylance
#90. I only ever wanted to be a model. This acting thing - three years of drama school - is an accident!
Gwendoline Christie
#91. Somebody said something really smart: It's like you end up being the defense attorney for your role. Your job is to defend their point of view. You're fighting for what they want. You learn that in acting school - it's Acting 1A: 'What do you want? What's in the way?'
Annette Bening
#92. Drama school is fundamentally practical. I didn't write any essays, so I came out with a BA honors degree in acting.
Emilia Clarke
#93. I needed an outlet in high school and came across painting. I've actually been painting longer than I've been acting. A movie is a collaborative effort, and with painting you just have yourself.
James Franco
#94. Clark Gable once said to me, "'Acting school?' [If you go,] I'll kill ya!"
Mickey Rooney
#95. A big moment for me was when I did a play that was a new adaptation of Dostojevskij's 'Crime and Punishment,' and I played Raskolnikov. It was actually the first thing I did when I got out of acting school.
Joel Kinnaman
#96. My acting teacher in high school was really influential, and we still keep in touch.
Brandon Jay McLaren
#97. I wanted to go to acting school, and I did a few modeling jobs to pay for acting school. I never aspired to be a model. I met lots of photographers, and I learned a lot about light - as a source of love and illumination, light as a gift of love. On film, that's a massive contribution.
Jacqueline Bisset
#98. For me, acting was a reward. I had to get good grades in order to act, in order to be on TV. I had to do well in school so I could work. To me, it was like an after-school activity, something to look forward to.
Kyla Pratt
#99. I never went to acting school, so improv was my training. Just being quick on your feet helps in everyday life.
Ben Schwartz
#100. My approach to acting is the 'let's pretend' school of acting.
Harrison Ford
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