Top 100 Actor Quotes
#1. I'll tell you something that's completely true - you can, as a man, obtain everything you want with the truth. If you lie, first of all you've got to be a very good lying actor, which is tres difficile. And it's going to give you poison inside the body.
Jean Reno
#2. There are some directors, lesser in confidence or skill, who make the actor feel very uncomfortable because you feel you're auditioning for them, every day, and that's a terrible feeling on the set.
Ben Kingsley
#3. If you're a good actor, then you channel enough of yourself into the character so that you do get that other thing.
Henry Cavill
#4. I really want my career to be as an actor-writer-director-producer, you know? I don't know what will be stronger than the other.
Danny Strong
#5. And there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?
Cary Grant
#6. I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor.
Melissa Leo
#7. Most actors don't really have a director's sensibility. They have an actor's sensibility.
Jodie Foster
#8. If I wasn't an actor? Hmm, I'd probably be a serial killer. I'm just so damn likeable, no one would ever suspect me.
Zach Braff
#9. The goal is always just trying to stretch yourself as an actor.
Andrew Scott
#10. As an actor myself, the opportunity to sing and dance and be dramatic and be funny - it's really irresistible to actors. You get to show all sides of your talent.
Elizabeth Banks
#11. I'm just an actor, but if the extra part of it is that I'm helping people or people are being helped by the virtue of what we're doing, then that's just a really nice added extra.
Christopher Meloni
#12. Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.
Tom Riley
#13. I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor. I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white.
Shemar Moore
#15. I had never really done voice-over. If you've ever seen me, I'm more the communicator through body language and movement ... I'm a physical actor.
Daniel Logan
#16. Sometimes I don't feel like an actor. Sometimes I speak about it like it was another job, and then I go, 'Wait a minute - I am one!'
Michael Keaton
#17. My main goal, starting out as a young actor, was to carry the reins that Pac left off and to reach the depths as an actor that I know he would have reached had he still been here with us.
Michael K. Williams
#18. Bill Powell is the only intelligent actor I've ever met.
Carole Lombard
#19. I had admired Richard Burton for years and years before I had ever worked with him. He was a great, great actor. It was a joy to get to know him as a person.
Gale Gordon
#20. It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.
Alan Alda
#21. I mean, I always think when you're an actor you have to be the guy running into the burning building rather than running out of it, if you want to make some noise as an actor.
Dylan McDermott
#22. I'm a method actor as well as a method singer.
Jill Scott
#23. One of the fun things about being an actor is stepping outside yourself and outside of your own experience. It's challenging yourself to totally commit to something that in your core is so wrong.
Jason Priestley
#24. The most intoxicating thing about being an actor is to surrender to a story that you never would have come up with.
Brit Marling
#25. I grew up in a family of actors. I grew up onstage. The choice for me wasn't, 'Do I want to be an actor or not?' I always felt like that's just ingrained in you, the need to perform. The choice was, 'Do you want to do this professionally or not?'
James Badge Dale
#26. It's nice to establish yourself as an actor first and a singer second. Proof is such a tremendous piece of work, and I'm incredibly lucky to be a part of it. I'm sure that the musicals will happen in the future, though.
Neil Patrick Harris
#27. I didn't think of myself as a singer. I'm an actor who recites words, and sometimes that happens to be on musical notes.
Mandy Patinkin
#28. I think of being an actor as a blue-collar profession.
Joe Mantegna
#29. I am still seeking to become firmly established as an actor.
DeForest Kelley
#30. You create this situation where you are so dependent on each other. That's especially true for film. In theater, the actor has much more say, much more control, for better or worse.
Susan Sarandon
#31. I'm lucky enough to say my day job is acting. I cut my teeth as a theater actor and playwright in New York.
Christopher Denham
#32. controversial performance as a corrupt detective in Training Day - would be seen holding the Oscar for best actor, almost four decades after Poitier's
Wil Haygood
#33. They've got this crazy actor who's 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they're probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.
Clint Eastwood
#34. If I had a long-term partner, I don't think I'd be an actor. It'd be too much of a strain; you have to work too hard to balance that life with a family and a mortgage and all that stuff - it would be too much.
Rory McCann
#35. I like the Baldwin boys a great deal. Alec is super-smart, super-articulate, almost too smart to be an actor.
Anthony LaPaglia
#36. Being a working actor, you're going to do a Spelling show. It's hard not to.
Casper Van Dien
#37. I want everyone to feel as much as possible as if they inhabit the same space. They more fluid the relationship between actor and audience, the better.
Christine Jones
#38. I wasn't aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I remember there was an Australian children's entertainer on television called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would say, you know, 'oh, is he Ralph Harris?' And I had to say no and then they would lose interest.
Jared Harris
#39. I do everything I can to be the best actor I can be, the best musician I can be. I try to take risks; I try not to let fear run my life.
Robert David Hall
#40. I have been very lucky for most of my adult life to be working as an actor.
Josh Hopkins
#41. One of the greatest things I've learned, as an actor, was how to talk to actors.
Eric Balfour
#42. There are the jobs you get that do something for your confidence, like "I can do this with my life" kind of thing. And then, there are the jobs that maybe bring a certain level of awareness about you as an actor where other people feel like they can hire you.
Rosemarie DeWitt
#43. I love having played Walter because I suppose any actor brings a certain aspect of their own personality to their work, and I had a fairly broad canvas to paint on with the different versions.
John Noble
#44. Before an actor can be this or be that, the actor must simply be.
Zoe Saldana
#45. I was always drawn toward the Actor's Studio. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute when I first came to New York. One of my favorite teachers was one of Al [Pachino]'s teachers, a guy named Charlie Laughton, who was just a wonderful, wonderful man.
Karen Allen
#46. Being on a Paul Thomas Anderson film, the best decision an actor can make is to listen to Paul Thomas Anderson. Because he's probably not going to steer anyone in the wrong direction. I would always say go with your gut on any other movie set, but with Paul, I would say go with Paul's gut.
Rami Malek
#47. Like an actor who transforms into the character that they're playing, you can transform into yourself.
Leeza Gibbons
#48. My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them.
Peter Facinelli
#49. My mom says that when I was a little kid, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I don't remember that.
Aaron Douglas
#50. As an actor, it's fun to play guys who aren't just locked into a male pattern, but a lot of guys you're asked to play are fairly macho and have a certain rigid standard they're living by.
Fred Ward
#51. Each director is different. Clint Eastwood and Chris Nolan are completely different, and I need to adjust to the story and character and the director and just my duty as an actor.
Ken Watanabe
#52. I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.
Robert Duvall
#53. I was never ambitious to be a good actor. I just love doing it and I seem to be quite suited for it.
Katherine Helmond
#54. Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.
Leon Askin
#55. It wasn't as though I really made a commitment to it; there wasn't anything else around. So I wasn't driven to become an actor.. it just seemed to be the thing that I managed to do best.
Paul Newman
#56. As an actor, I really like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think he's a genius.
Simon Cowell
#57. You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience.
Cillian Murphy
#58. I don't prepare for my roles. I don't watch movies to get inspired. I don't dig deep. I'll never be that type of actor, and I doubt that I ever will be.
Bow Wow
#59. As an actor I'm always interested in dialogue, the way the characters speak to each other. I also enjoy a bit of humor, especially when it's unexpected.
Michael Boatman
#60. I never thought I would get married and have kids. I thought I was going to be a gypsy actor, traveling all over the world playing the great roles. I ended up having a kid very young, and it put things in perspective.
Bobby Cannavale
#62. You know, it's recently come into focus for me why I want to be an actor: It's because of the connection I feel to people.
Jessica Chastain
#63. This really should be kept secret, but you can learn a lot by watching the making-of DVDs. Every actor should do it. You figure out what you're dealing with.
Bill Murray
#64. Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.
Michael Gambon
#65. I'm an actor, I do movies, and I need to find somebody who enjoys that kind of stuff. It's not like, "Oh, I have my work time, and we go on a date, and it better be darn fun and exciting!" I think it should all coalesce a bit more.
James Franco
#66. You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.
Julian Fellowes
#67. When I was a little kid, my parents would show me Marx Brothers' films and westerns and stuff like that. That's where all my desire to be an actor comes from and probably most of my understanding of acting comes from for sure.
Alden Ehrenreich
#68. When you first start out as an actor, you're just looking for a good part. As time goes on, if you're being held responsible for the movies themselves, you're looking for a good script all around.
George Clooney
#69. You are successful if you are able to work on the kind of material that you want to - if your life conforms to your dreams, regardless of outside acceptance or acclaim.
James Franco
#70. Here's the funny thing about the response I've been aware of to my dating famous people: It's been very negative. I'm either not good-looking enough, not a good enough actor or not successful enough for these people.
Dax Shepard
#71. There are short parts that I as an actor am very right for. Or I just like the part. Or you need someone like me for the movie. By that I don't mean at the box office, I mean in the execution of the material.
Jack Nicholson
#72. I don't really know what kind of actor I am.
Paul Dano
#73. I want to be a great actor someday, and I've decided there's no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.
Al Pacino
#74. As an actor, acting is like playing a sport. You do this thing that's intangible, and while it's happening, it's great. But then when it's done, there's really no tangible product. Someone else is capturing it and turning it into something tangible.
Chris Evans
#75. I'm pretty much of a physical actor.
Nick Nolte
#76. There are many ups and downs in everyone's life and when you're an actor usually you're a very sensitive human being.
Melanie Griffith
#77. I started to act in highschool and became a professional actor at 19.
Nick Mancuso
#78. Better we see them seeing us, because then we can all see together, but when not seeing them seeing us we might not see them seeing us doing what we are doing. MI5 agent Iona von Ustinov (father of actor Peter Ustinov) to MI6 agent Desmond Bristow about the PDVE (Portuguese Secret Police) in 1944.
Desmond Bristow
#79. There is a perfect rout of characters in every man - and every man is like an actor's trunk, full of strange creatures, new & old. But an actor and his trunk are two different things
Wallace Stevens
#80. Every actor has a natural animosity toward every other actor, present or absent, living or dead.
Louise Brooks
#81. Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.
John DiMaggio
#82. An actor's life is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing. The finest actor does not create, he is but a translator of another man's work.
Fanny Kemble
#83. I think I'm fortunate as an actor in that I do seem to get opportunities to play roles that aren't necessarily typical of what I've done before.
Martin Henderson
#84. The secret to longevity in the music business is to change, and to be able to change. An actor has to assume other people's identities. A rock star doesn't need to do that. But change is important.
Nick Cave
#85. An actor has no more right to be temperamental than a bank clerk.
Fredric March
#86. An actor's career doesn't feel like just one career to me. It feels like about five or six. Because every six or seven years, you look in the mirror and you have a completely different product.
Ron Livingston
#87. I always knew that I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to be a singer and an actor. I knew that every choice I made would help me get to that point. So the better the choices I made, the more of a chance I would have to get to where I wanted to be.
Lea Michele
#88. The first movie I really clicked with was 'Die Hard' when I was 6 years old, which is crazy that I was watching it that young. That was the one that made me want to become an actor.
Jack Reynor
#89. I didn't apply to any colleges - I lied to all my friends and told them I was going to UCSD, because all their parents would be like, 'Mark, where're you going to college?' and I'd just lie 'cause I felt it was unrealistic to be an actor.
Mark Ruffalo
#90. You must become the producer, director and actor in the unfolding story of your life.
Wayne W. Dyer
#91. Any actor, any playwright who's worked a life in the theater knows how to do things cheaply and quickly. It's just all by necessity. Invention is everything.
Israel Horovitz
#92. The life of an actor is very hard irrespective of the continent you are in. It is doubly hard when you are only eligible for minority roles.
Kabir Bedi
#93. It would be far to general a statement to try and describe the daily life of an actor in Hollywood, but I am quite certain that cappucinos have something to do with it.
Corin Nemec
#94. As an actor, the only thing we can do is play the truth at that moment. Because at any point in time if you play the future, or you play that you know something that the audience does not know, it kills the illusion of reality.
Anthony Mackie
#95. I'm an actor, and I like having attention, I guess. There's a reason I like being on stage. There's a reason I like being in front of a camera. It's that interaction.
Tatiana Maslany
#96. I am still a journeyman actor and a peace and justice activist. I'm a pilgrim trying to win my freedom and serve as best I can in the time I have, with this gift I've been given.
Martin Sheen
#97. The actor that taught me the most was Bernie Mac. I did my first big budget studio film with he and Angela Bassett, 'Mr. 3000' for Disney. Bernie taught me by example what creates success is humility and hard work.
Brian J. White
#98. Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
Viola Davis
#99. Sterling Holloway, the actor who had originally voiced Pooh, decided to retire in the mid-1980s. Disney decided that they wanted to continue this character with their 'New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' TV series.
Jim Cummings
#100. I think the greatest thing about being an actor is that you can become other people ... You have the opportunity to explore ... alternative ways of living for a brief time.
Ian McDiarmid
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