Top 100 An Actor Quotes
#1. Wanting to work is a luxury; having to work is not. If you're an artist, an actor, and you don't have to work, then you do work that you wanna do.
Steve Guttenberg
#2. The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.
Mike Leigh
#3. Acting is something I did when I was a kid. I do act sometimes in friends' projects, but when I do, it's just for fun. It is actually a hobby for me now. I do still love stage acting, but the day-to-day process of being an actor is so exhausting and so taxing.
Mara Wilson
#4. I'm an actor first and foremost, who happens to do improv. I've also done sitcoms, I've done stage.
Wayne Brady
#5. Being an actor started me writing, and that led to directing.
Chris Eigeman
#6. I want to be so strong as an actor that people wouldn't say ... eh, that's Josh Lucas.
Josh Lucas
#7. I'm still waiting to hit it big. But there was the moment when I didn't have to work at the restaurant anymore, which is the milestone for every actor. When your job is just to be an actor and not to have to do anything else.
Lizzy Caplan
#8. You know I got kicked out of high school and I used to go to Hendrix concerts. I used to go see Marvin Gaye and B.B. King and so here I am on television as an actor playing the part of this really sweet wholesome all American boy. The reality was I had a much different kind of teenage life.
David Cassidy
#10. If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.
Samuel Johnson
#11. My mom is an art teacher and my dad owns a women's shoe store, so they're not actors by any means. Well, I guess to sell women's shoes, you have to be an actor.
James Wolk
#12. I think I'm a better director than I ever was an actor. I'd love to go back to acting, but nobody seems to want me.
Jonathan Frakes
#13. As a working-class actor, leaving school with no qualifications, being a printer and then becoming an actor and then working with people who to a certain extent had had a leg up. I never had that advantage. It's less an artistic need to express myself and more a need to prove myself.
Eddie Marsan
#14. At about twelve I just knew, something clicked, and I knew I wanted to be an actor and my parents, to their credit, granted this 12 year old girl a chance to give it a try.
Erika Christensen
#15. I guess that is a good compliment for an actor for people to hate you wherever you go.
Tom Verica
#16. If I wasn't an actor, I probably would've tried to get a job with the Braves.
Matt Lanter
#17. There are a lot of actors who wish there was a next play, a next musical. As an actor, I guess that's all I can wish for - the next role, the next opportunity.
Lea Salonga
#18. You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question.
Michael Morpurgo
#19. In general all celebrities, no matter how they became a celebrity, or if they're an actor or singer or a model, whatever it is - that people are people and people have problems and there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Rachel Uchitel
#20. Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.
Gore Vidal
#21. As an actor, I've grown considerably. It's taken me years to get comfortable doing a romantic scene and dancing on stage in front of a live audience. I've really opened up a lot.
Sanjay Dutt
#22. I think I'm much more afraid of making a mistake in raising my daughters than I would be with any work that I do, as an actor. It's a much higher scale of fear, raising kids.
Bruce Willis
#23. I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.
Don Rickles
#24. I ended up an actor, did my first professional union gig in 1974, and I've been doing it ever since.
Michael Ironside
#25. I would do 'John Carter' again tomorrow. I'm very proud of 'John Carter.' Box office doesn't validate me as a person, or as an actor.
Taylor Kitsch
#26. As an actor you're used to being the focus of attention.
Yasmine Bleeth
#27. I always want to execute and maximize off of potential, and this is a natural progression. Coming up as a youngster, I always wanted to be a rapper, but I knew that if I did everything right as a rapper, I'd end up as an actor, following the models of Ice Cube, Tupac [Shakur] and Will Smith.
T.I.
#28. As an actor, the first thing you learn in drama school is you never judge.
Jason Clarke
#29. Los Angeles is where you have to be if you want to be an actor. You have no choice. You go there or New York. I flipped a coin about it. It came up New York, so I flipped again. When you're starting out to be an actor, who wants to go where it's cold and miserable and be poor there?
Harrison Ford
#30. When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.
Clint Eastwood
#31. I don't want to be a movie star like Angelina Jolie. Nothing about being a celebrity is desirable. I'm an actor. It's bizarre to me that everybody's so obsessive.
Kristen Stewart
#32. So, one way or another, I found myself in a few movies. I take it seriously when I'm on the set, but I don't take myself seriously as an actor.
Henry Rollins
#33. When I was younger, people used to say you only really prove yourself as an actor on stage. And I disagree with that. Some of the finest acting I've ever come across has been for film.
Clive Owen
#34. All my friends were going off to be professionals, and I said I wanted to be an actor.
Harrison Ford
#35. I do know that the key to anything good is feeling relaxed and free. That's the main thing that you can offer yourself as an actor.
Rosamund Pike
#36. One of the gifts of being an actor is that you get to learn new things see the world through different eyes.
Tanc Sade
#37. Well, if I hadn't have been an actor I would have gone on to play college sports.
Joe Manganiello
#38. I suppose it's whether you want to be a famous person, or whether you want to be an actor. You have to decide what your priorities are. Great actor, huge star. Sometimes, the two walk hand in hand. Most of the time, they don't.
Anne-Marie Duff
#39. I just don't believe you're capable of being an actor unless you have a desire to experience your emotions in a public way.
Romola Garai
#40. If I wasn't an actor, I'd probably be working in journalism.
Sophia Bush
#41. Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
Harold Ramis
#42. 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.
#43. I've never wanted an Oscar, although they are reassuring to an actor who doesn't know how really great he is.
Bob Hope
#44. I was always going to act, literally ever since I was tiny. In fact, I have Doctor Who to thank for that. I wanted to become an actor after being obsessed with Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, in the 1970s. His was the definitive performance of all time in anything.
David Tennant
#45. Broadway was without doubt the hardest I ever worked in my life and the highest highs I've ever had as an actor. The unadulterated fear was on a level that was hard to explain.
Brad Garrett
#46. I got to New York when I was eighteen. I was knocking around, trying to be an actor, writer, musician, whatever happened.
Sam Shepard
#47. From a very young age, I wanted to be an actor, but I lived in a very small town in Florida where there weren't any opportunities for that.
Lauren Miller
#48. You draw on your own childhood every time you tee it up as an actor.
Ron Perlman
#49. It's not a prerequisite for an actor to be obsessed about his looks. I know there are people who don't look in the mirror at all, and I'm getting there.
Hrithik Roshan
#50. I'm an actor, paid to act. I don't bring personal problems to the sets. Dad taught me that.
Abhishek Bachchan
#51. My biggest emotional defeat and the greatest emotional pain I've had as an actor was when 'Wild Wild West' opened up to $52 million. The movie wasn't good. And it hurt so bad to be the No. 1 movie, to open at $52 million and to know the movie wasn't good.
Will Smith
#52. Our impulse as people is to try to control; as an actor, you have to give up that control.
Andrew J. West
#53. Anthony Mackie in 'The Hurt Locker' is everything an actor can hope to be. So rock steady in his portrayal that you immediately forget every performance he may have previously given, and focus only on the character in front of you.
Denis Leary
#54. An actor has power, and their power is very simple: it's the power to say no.
Ken Stott
#55. To the audience it doesn't really matter how much the director struggled with an actor. It's the result that counts.
Roman Polanski
#56. I know what my limitations are as an actor, but my strength is putting myself into a well-written part. When I get in trouble is when I have to fix it, or when I have to carry it on personality.
George Clooney
#57. We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we? Especially if you are an actor.
Benedict Cumberbatch
#58. Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
#59. An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays.
Arthur Lowe
#60. I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it.
Michael Imperioli
#61. Ellis Peters's historical detail is very accurate and very minute, and therefore is not only interesting to read but good for an actor to acquire a sense of the period. And the other thing I think is that an actor lives in the land of imagination.
Derek Jacobi
#62. My taste in the films I've taken as an actor is similar to what I'd do a director or writer: all quite odd, challenging stuff, slightly off-the-wall.
Daniel Radcliffe
#63. I'm used to being in front of camera and knowing what to think. But if you're asking me to be me, I get very self-conscious. My job isn't to be me. Being an actor, people think you can do a eulogy at a funeral, a speech at a wedding. I find all that very nerve-racking.
Eddie Marsan
#64. What you try to do, as an actor, is just make it work somehow.
Giles Matthey
#65. I'm not a celebrity. I don't call myself a celebrity. I'm an actor.
Sophia Bush
#66. I don't particularly consider myself an actor. I have no training. I love doing it, but I would never consider myself to be a colleague of an actual actor. That would be stepping way up in class on my part.
David Rakoff
#67. As an actor, there is room for a certain amount of creativity, but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetry, because those are my two passions.
Daniel Radcliffe
#68. My dad didn't often bring me to the set, being an actor himself, so my infancy as an actor was wracked with a lot of giggles and nervousness.
Josh Brolin
#69. Robb Stark was a young man not expecting anything, thinking his life is going to be on one path, and then he's pushed. More weight and responsibility get put onto him; more demands are made of him. For me, as an actor, there are parallels to that.
Richard Madden
#70. An actor can change himself to fit a part, whereas a personality has to change the part to fit himself. The personality has to say it his own way.
Dale Robertson
#71. I was about 6 or 7, I would have said I wanted to be an actor and an artist. And that just kind of kept honing itself around film and getting closer to film.
Todd Haynes
#72. Remember that you are but an actor, acting whatever part the Master has ordained. It may be short or it may be long. If he wishes you to represent a poor man, do so heartily; if a cripple, or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your part with honor.
Epictetus
#73. I'm an actor, full stop. Not an Arab actor. Not an actor of Algerian origin. Just an actor.
Tahar Rahim
#74. When you're an actor or any kind of artist, you use your life as something to draw from in every experience.
Josh Peck
#75. Even through my college years, I was trying out plays and shows, but I never really thought it made much sense to try to be an actor. I thought it was foolish, really.
Dermot Mulroney
#76. When I decided to be an actor, years ago, I just said, 'Look, I'm not going to do this unless I can be the best,' but I don't know what 'the best' is.
Eddie McClintock
#77. I think the toughest thing for me to figure out, as an actor, was how to translate all those layers that are in there and that history that the writers have done such a great job at forming.
Alycia Debnam Carey
#78. If you are lucky as an actor, you are doing a character that really matches where you are in life, or you're doing a character that is not where you are. If it's somewhere in between, you have to use a lot of imagination and a lot of thought.
Scott Cohen
#79. As an actor, the biggest compliment you can get, in my book is for someone to believe that you're the character.
Matt LeBlanc
#80. Anything that you [as an actor] can change about yourself for a part is helpful.
Michael Pitt
#81. As an actor, there are many confusing factors that can make you take or not take a decision. It becomes difficult. Your first and last checkpoint should be the story. I always read a script as an audience.
Nimrat Kaur
#82. There are people out there with three jobs and small children. Being an actor is a walk in the park compared to working as a cleaner overnight. I'm lucky I'm not plucking chickens.
Anne-Marie Duff
#83. I'm frequently surprised, sometimes bugged off, and sometimes happy, depending on the actor. It's a fact of life that just as often as not an actor can breathe life into a line as he can destroy it by misinterpretation, and I've been blessed frequently by having good actors.
Rod Serling
#84. I feel like I express myself, as an actor. Whatever the character is put in front of me, I try to bring truth to it, whichever way it lands. I try to bring as much truth to it and make it as believable as I can. I think that's the job of an actor.
Tyler Perry
#85. The most amazing thing you can ask for as an actor from a director is that you're being seen, that the choices made are informed.
Bertie Carvel
#86. I was just excited by the whole prospect of working in a television series in Hollywood. I had never anticipated that as an actor I would ever end up here. It may be some sort of fantasy I'd thought about from time to time, but it was completely unrealistic.
Patrick Stewart
#87. I want to try and do as much as I can as an actor. So far I think I've done pretty well with being a minister's son. And now I know I'm pretty darn good at playing a woman too.
Barry Watson
#88. For me as an actor, you always sort of want to bring yourself to a character in some way. You want to find a way to approach something in a way that's real and interesting, and also so there's some empathy there.
Britt Robertson
#89. As an actor, the minute you start getting real in interviews, you lose mystery.
Shia Labeouf
#90. Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.
Elia Kazan
#91. Doing voiceovers is so great because even though many people would think it's just your voice, you really do use all your physicality. I've done everything from playing a butterfly to Alice in Wonderland when she's 10 feet tall, so it allows you to be an actor and build new characters.
Ashley Bell
#92. I felt that I shouldn't be an actor who just makes movie after movie in a quest for prestige and money.
Kevin Spacey
#93. You've got to not care about what people think. You learn that as an actor. If you get a bad review, will you be destroyed by it? Or will you think you're God's gift when you get a rave review?
Martin Henderson
#94. Arnaud Desplechin invented me as an actor. I never imagined I'd be acting in movies.
Mathieu Amalric
#95. I care more about telly because it made me an actor and there's a much more immediate response to TV. You can address the political or cultural fabric of your country.
Christopher Eccleston
#96. I'm an actor who they said was wrinkled and balding and everything else when I was in my early 30's. Most of the people who wrote that who thought they were younger than me are now bald and wrinkled.
Jack Nicholson
#97. How was I going to make a man fly? How was I going to convince the public that an actor could fly?
Richard Donner
#98. When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way.
Viola Davis
#99. I have been an actor now for 40 years having worked in over 10 countries and three languages.
Nick Mancuso
#100. Growth as an actor and as a human being are synonymous.
Stella Adler
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