Top 100 Actors Are Quotes
#1. The actors are in control, getting outrageous amounts of money. The reason they're getting this kind of money is because the studios don't know what else to do. They don't have a clue about what to do except to pay an actor a lot of money.
Peter Bogdanovich
#2. Actors are players and if they're hot, or onto something, you let them go, or you and the actor can both get on to something. I always run out with lines as I think of them.
William Monahan
#3. Actors are by nature volatile - alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.
M.L. Rio
#4. An awful lot of actors who are considered very good actors are not very good actors. There are people who just strike gold, they have intrinsic talent but the point is that if they did train ... it would only broaden them more.
Martin Landau
#5. The hardest thing about being an actor, for me, is that if you are the 0.00001% of individuals who wants to do it, you're a freak. And you're an assertive freak. Though actors are often shy, there's this tremendous assertive extroversion in you somewhere.
Janel Moloney
#7. My favourite actors are all dead or dying. I just love Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn - I was named after her - and Cary Grant. I just love old black and white movies and the stars in them. It must have been a great time to be in Hollywood.
Katharine Isabelle
#8. I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.
Robert De Niro
#10. A lot of actors are frustrated because they want to do things that are different and test themselves. Character actors are always looking for something the opposite of what they did.
Jason Statham
#11. Oftentimes, actors are looked at as court jesters. They are not looked at as deep-thinking, smart people who do many other things or have gifts in other areas.
Goldie Hawn
#12. For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. What I disapprove of is photographing things that are not real. Sets and actors are not real.
Robert Bresson
#13. I'm very grateful and fully aware that 90 percent of actors are not working. Going from public school teacher to a show like 'Grey's Anatomy', I love what I do.
Jesse Williams
#14. I just love when a movie takes a break and gives you a poetic moment, but sometimes it's good when they just happen randomly. If your actors are really comfortable and you let the camera roll, sometimes things happen and you just see something that's visually iconic, or emotionally that way.
Cameron Crowe
#15. When actors are too good-looking, I can't memorize them. For example, I have never seen a picture of Sienna Miller where I didn't say, That girl's pretty. Who is that?
Tina Fey
#16. My teeth are all right, but they are not American teeth, and my hair is not thick and luscious. Los Angeles is dense with beautiful people, and most of the men who are aspiring actors are 5ft 5in, so I tower above them.
Stephen Merchant
#17. American actors are coy. We all have pricks and cunts, or are you different from the rest of us?
Peter Greenaway
#18. All actors are on the run from some demon or other.
Julian Sands
#19. TV actors are doing great in Bollywood. We have our own market, our own fans, who love to see us on the big screen.
Mona Singh
#20. A lot of people that make films say, 'We need this kind of character. Who's done it before? Get them to do it again.' That is exactly what actors are pushing against. It's kind of a cliche to talk about being stereotyped in that way, but it happens.
John C. Reilly
#21. Other actors are not my concern, and that's their life and that's their journey. Everybody has to get to a point in their own time and their own way.
Zachary Quinto
#22. As an artist I just think comedic actors are really underrated.
Rose Byrne
#23. Actors are all about entrances, but writers are all about exits.
Vincent H. O'Neil
#24. Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.
Martin Freeman
#26. Adult actors are really childish, and that's nice to be around when you're a kid. So the big reason I wanted to be an actor was I really enjoyed actors' company - which probably makes me about as shallow as a puddle. But it could be worse. I could be working for a living.
Jack Davenport
#27. Most actors are starving. Most of us are walking around with a flashlight and tweezers looking for evidence. When you have someone that actually writes an acting role, it's rare.
Dylan McDermott
#28. British actors are pretty good, by and large, at turning on at 'action' and off at 'cut.'
James Purefoy
#29. You know what actors are like. You can sometimes be like, 'Darling, darling, we love each other,' but you don't really know them.
Theo James
#30. As a child, I always liked dressing up and getting into character, and actors are lucky in being able to retain that playfulness, though we do seem to find it hard to grow up.
Felicity Jones
#31. If actors are making a little film with me at 2am in Nashville, they're not doing it to get paid. They're doing it because there's something special about the characters, which helps the film become more interesting.
Dito Montiel
#32. What actors are good at doing is walking into a situation that should make you incredibly self-conscious and frightened and doing it anyway. That's the gig, pretending that you are comfortable.
William H. Macy
#33. I think a lot of what you do depends on the other people in the cast. It doesn't only depend on you the actor, but it depends on a variety of things, what the other actors are like.
Robert Loggia
#34. Listen, acting is not surgery, it's entertainment. You're doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we're vulnerable is that we're always trying to recreate human behaviour.
Eddie Redmayne
#35. Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced.
Mike Mills
#36. People assume actors are born liars, but I'd argue the actor's job is to tell the truth. And I've realised I'm not a good liar.
Cate Blanchett
#37. I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare.
Alan Cumming
#38. No matter how big a name you are, how many big series you've been in or how good looking you are, in the end, all actors are secondary to the writer.
Christopher Eccleston
#39. Young actors are serious about their work and don't take any time out from it. I'm very serious about my work; there are probably only two films I've done where I had a really good time.
Miranda Otto
#40. As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.
Carlton Cuse
#41. You know, actors are fans, too. And talent is very attractive to me.
Kevin Kline
#42. I, over the years, have always felt more comfortable if I could go into a projection room and look at a film and not really know what to expect. If you read the script first, you form all kinds of preconceptions about how things look, what the location's like, what the actors are like.
John Williams
#43. Generally speaking, actors are allowed NO input. Actors are dumb.
Dirk Benedict
#44. The fact of the matter is that most actors are shy people.
Roger Moore
#45. As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what."
Javier Bardem
#46. It's a super super strange world when the actors are the less weird ones.
Michael Rooker
#47. In Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann takes the most thrilling moments in a movie musical-the seconds before the actors are about to burst into song and dance, when every breath they take is heightened-and makes an entire picture of such pinnacles.
Elvis Mitchell
#48. I think all good actors are personalities. If they're not, they're not stars. What makes you a star is horsepower.
Katharine Hepburn
#49. I think actors are attracted to the idea of other identities and concealing themselves behind some other identity.
Hugh Laurie
#50. The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
Alexander Payne
#51. Most actors are socialists, aren't they?
Samuel West
#52. There's an infantilization that happens to actresses in general - musical theatre, straight theatre, television, film - we're spoken to like children. Actors are spoken to like children a lot of the time.
Laura Benanti
#53. I don't know if child actors are necessarily more screwed up than most people.
Rider Strong
#54. I know it sounds earnest, but I do really feel in my bones that acting is just a small part of the equation when you are making a movie. The director really is in charge. Actors are as important or unimportant as the rest of the people around them.
Julia Stiles
#55. I've always believed that the greatest actors are the ones that have the voices that are imitable.
Nicolas Cage
#56. Any actor will tell you there's more of a schedule to doing a television show. That's why you'll notice a lot of big movie actors are doing television, and they'll tell you, it's because of the schedule.
Jason Marsden
#57. It's true what people say - that actors are the closest thing there is to children. They play.
Nastassja Kinski
#58. Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.
Ian McKellen
#59. It is important to keep the filmmakers interested in you so they can offer you everything and anything. We actors are not given work on the basis of audience poll; the filmmaker will cast you after they see and like your work. It is essential to do different kind of films and not get typecast.
Randeep Hooda
#60. Actors are trusting souls, and we must go by gut-level instinct, even after our agents and business managers weigh all the odds.
Anne Archer
#61. Actors are intelligent. Yet, many of them do not communicate well. That's what makes it so hard to have a relationship with one.
Omari Hardwick
#62. As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.
Eli Roth
#63. Producing is a world of compromise and actors are utterly spoiled all the time.
Damian Lewis
#64. The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct? We are delivering the playwright's intention through the concept of the director. And I come on stage; if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away.
Patti LuPone
#65. I've broken a cardinal rule of art, music, and career paths: actors are supposed to act, and musicians are supposed to music. That's how it works. You don't buy fish from a dentist, or ask a plumber for financial advice, so why listen to an actor's music?
Hugh Jackman
#66. All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.
Richard Eyre
#67. I have a theory ... Theatre actors are better at auditions than film actors.
Shaun Sipos
#68. All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.
Sylvester Stallone
#69. Actors are the flowers of the film, of the set, and of the director. The term 'Flowers of the Screen' holds a deep meaning.
Kim Jee-woon
#70. Some stars like to hide behind the whole idea of acting. But really good actors are not hiding at all. They're not afraid to be disliked, to be a little unsavoury.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
#71. A pilot is like the most extensive dress rehearsal you can ever imagine, because the writers are learning about the actors, the actors are learning about the characters.
Kim Cattrall
#72. Actors are smart. They have to feel safe enough to fall and to get back up. My job is to make sure they don't get hurt.
Scott Ellis
#73. A lot of actors are perfectionists, besides merely being egotists.
Eric Mabius
#74. All actors are whores.
They want only one thing: to seduce you.
Joyce Carol Oates
#75. Seeing a film at the cinema, or a DVD or whatever at home, your brain is really receptive to not only whether the script's working, or if the actors are acting well, but also the colours.
Crispian Mills
#76. I think people take their behavioural tips from everyone else. So, if the director is calm and the lead actors are calm, no one wants to be the sore thumb. And I've remained friendly with everyone.
Robert B. Weide
#77. All actors are looking for that role that's going to define who they are. When it happens, it's a good thing.
Jeffrey Pierce
#78. Normal people - i.e., people who aren't actors - are the most bizarre people you can ever come across. I'll talk to someone and come away thinking, 'They are clinically insane.'
Michael Sheen
#79. I don't know why British actors are getting big parts in American TV shows. Maybe it's because we're cheap.
Dominic West
#80. There's sort of a very symbiotic thing that happens on good TV shows with great writers, which is that they start to sort of embrace who the actors are and try to make the roles more specific to what they bring and what they can do.
Lucas Neff
#81. If there's anything I know about directing, it's how to make actors comfortable. It's where I started and it's what I know, and it's what I love. I like when the actors are really partners and I want them to be excited and I want them to surprise me. I don't want them to be puzzle pieces.
John Cameron Mitchell
#82. With acting, you have to take it seriously because the other actors are putting in a lot of effort - and if you say, 'I'm just bullshitting here', it's like dissing 'em.
Ice-T
#83. Actors are basically drag queens. People will tell you they act because they want to heal mankind or, you know, explore the nature of the human psyche. Yes, maybe. But basically we just want to put on a frock and dance.
Colin Firth
#84. I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.
Nicole Kidman
#85. The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting - 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors.
Nicolas Roeg
#86. Who says that actors are cattle? Show me a cow who can earn a million dollars a film.
Langdon Winner
#87. People always feel like there's a big split between TV and films: I'm a television actress, I'm a film actress. Maybe that's how it was but I feel like there's not that separation anymore. And actors are able to kind of flow between both worlds - and connect to both audiences.
Cobie Smulders
#88. I have been in situations where actors are treated like robots: say the lines, say it like this, we don't have time for conversations. That is a terrible position to be in as an artist. You feel used.
Nia Long
#89. When actors are being defensive and defending their position, that is when you get less than good acting.
John Boorman
#90. Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don't understand that.
Matthew Macfadyen
#91. I think it makes a difference when the actors are enjoying it more than anything because we have a real blast on 'Torchwood.'
Burn Gorman
#92. All good actors are easy to work with. It's the ones that aren't very good who tend to be very difficult.
Tom Wilkinson
#93. We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework, and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite.
Lorraine Toussaint
#95. I was very introverted. I had glasses and was kind of weird. A lot of actors are pretty weird people.
Jennifer Sky
#96. I don't think actors are to blame for poor writing. The culture changes first, and the theater follows it. In the case of the movies, it's the same thing.
Christopher Reeve
#97. Actors are there to represent the human condition back to itself. It's never about the actor. It's about the content. That's what I strive for in my work.
Debra Lawrance
#98. The best actors are always the ones who've directed as well, as they understand all the problems you face.
Alexander Payne
#99. Great actors are people who just meld into the part without calling attention to the fact that they are so-and-so doing this part. They may never become huge stars, but will always, in memory, stay respected actors.
Shekhar Kapur
#100. Actors are part of a certain percentage of people on this planet who have an emotional vocabulary as a primary experience. It's as if their life is experienced emotionally and then that is translated intellectually or conceptually into the performance.
Mary McDonnell
