Great Acting Quotes

#1. I see all these people talking about acting as a great spiritual thing. It's not. There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do, but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

Eddie Marsan

#2. 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

#3. I need to work with great directors and actors, people who are better than me, so that I am challenged. It is like playing sports - surfing, basketball, it doesn't matter what it is, if you play with people who are better than you, then you get better too. It is the same thing with acting.

Paul Walker

#4. 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

#5. 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

#6. I think it's a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven't had the time to learn their craft. It doesn't matter if it's acting or music; you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic ... fame is a terrible thing to have.

Denis Leary

#7. I would say that Emma Stone and Emma Watson are two very talented young actresses who are very intelligent and have a great sense of humor and have learned to balance what they love with their acting career, and I think that's really a great thing.

Kara Hayward

#8. Packs a Huge Emotional Punch! Graceful Writing, Great Acting, Exquisite Direction, Suspense, Profound Subject Matter and It Rocks!

Rex Reed

#9. When I was younger, all I wanted to do was be a singer, and then I got into a great acting class in New York and became obsessed with that.

Chaley Rose

#10. No matter what happens to you in life, you just roll with it. And then, when we went back to shoot Eclipse, I went to Quileute and taught some acting to the kids, and just got to spend some time in the community, which was great because it gave me an idea of where Emily came from.

Tinsel Korey

#11. Working with a great director is like getting a master class in acting.

Swoosie Kurtz

#12. 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

#13. Creating a world in a sci-fi show is almost the whole battle. If you have a great story and you can create a great world, as far as the acting goes, it makes my job a whole lot easier.

Thomas Jane

#14. Going back to Georgiana Drew and John Drew, and my great-grandfather Maurice Barrymore, and it was such a sort of circus of odd, interesting people that loved acting.

Drew Barrymore

#15. I've made great friends through acting. When I'm with Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, we have grand fun. We can make each other howl with laughter because we know each other so well.

Celia Imrie

#16. Acting can be a great job, but you do have to make up things to do when you're not working.

Laurence Fox

#17. Where else do you find great directors? Acting is one of the places.

Liev Schreiber

#18. Modeling is great because I don't have lines to memorize. But I find acting much more challenging - which is a good thing!

Candace Kita

#19. It's absolutely impossible to have a serious critical discussion about enthusiasms for movie stars. Because a movie star is an animal separate from acting. Sometimes, he or she is a great actor. Sometimes a third-rate one. But the star is something that you fall in love with ...

Peter Biskind

#20. People still make New Year's resolutions? Wow. I figured those were pointless once I perfected myself by directing, writing, and acting in Garden State. I guess it makes sense, though. It gives people a chance to hope that they can become as great as me someday.

Zach Braff

#21. When I was in acting classes early on, there were so many people in these classes who were doing great work, and you'd just look at them and say, 'Wow, I hope to someday be like that.' And yet these people never worked. You never saw them.

Mark Harmon

#22. 'Death Of A Salesman' is a great acting job.

Ken Stott

#23. I realize that acting is my job, and I have a life outside of my career to help keep me grounded. It is great to have a job you love!

Olivia Stuck

#24. You can have great sequences with music, but if you don't have the acting you're bored after 15 minutes. Or not bored, but you're like, 'So what?'

Danny Boyle

#25. Great acting is being able to create a character. Great character is being able to be yourself.

John Leguizamo

#26. I never gave it that much thought to pursue acting or anything, but I would definitely be a Bond girl if they asked me. For sure - I would make a great evil Bond girl!

Lara Stone

#27. My default position is not to be an actor. My default position is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If that means I continue in acting, great! I'd love that. But if it means I need to change professions someday because I can't provide for my family, well, that's what I need to do.

Kirk Cameron

#28. I took an acting class with Louise Lasser, Woody Allen's first wife and co-star in many movies. I've done some other indie films, if you look on the YouTube. I love acting - it's great.

Gary Shteyngart

#29. I'm the youngest of four, and they were all very into sports. I was the first one to express an interest in the arts. I took piano lessons and singing lessons, acting lessons. So it was all new to them, but my parents were great.

Max Von Essen

#30. 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

#31. When I connect to my soul, project it into another # character , and then bring it to the stage or to a film
that has always been for me the great joy of # acting . It's been as if my soul kind of leaps out of my body and is able to be free and dance around.

Kyra Sedgwick

#32. Acting in another language is great, and I've done that. But you can't do it as well as you can do it in your own language.

Emmanuelle Seigner

#33. I did a modeling gig for Burberry once, and it was a great experience, but no I am not a model. I want to be a model because it's a lot easier than acting.

Alex Pettyfer

#34. The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands.

Maria Jeritza

#35. Every film by Will Smith, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Don Cheadle will have great acting and carry good messages in the film. The films starring those actors are the films I tell young people to watch for good acting and to view for quality movies.

Brian J. White

#36. I would love to be able to do both (acting and making music). If I look at someone like Sinatra, who toured until he was 80 and made 60 movies, that would be a great life to have.

Jon Bon Jovi

#37. The reason I got into acting was the audience is right there and if you did something great they were right there and you knew it.

Alan Tudyk

#38. You don't want to say somebody did a great job of acting. You want to say, "Where did he find that person? How did he get that factory worker to come out of the factory and be on camera?" You want to believe that person is real.

Ronee Blakley

#39. Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ... not waiting to deliver your lines.

Michael Caine

#40. My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#41. A lot of what is famous about film making are the movie stars and what is considered a movie star is a lot of great acting, but also a lot of physical beauty.

Kelli O'Hara

#42. I've learned that for Indian people, the opportunity for us to succeed is very slim. So acting was a great tool for that. And in the process of learning about my culture, I've learned how to connect myself again to my ancestors.

Adam Beach

#43. I think that Brad Pitt is definitely a hottie. And his acting is so great that it makes him even more sexy.

Stacy Keibler

#44. Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.

Chris Tucker

#45. 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

#46. You know, at this point, my focus still is acting, but I think at some point in time, I definitely want to do some directing, I'm just not sure when. But it's not on my plate big-time right now, just because I'm busy, and I'm having such a great time.

Jackie Earle Haley

#47. Playing with guns you revert to a little boy sometimes. But they're not great things to play with, so it's just making them look real. When it comes to shooting guns or using any prop, you've got to make it look like you know what you're doing with them. It's called acting.

Ray Winstone

#48. People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap.

Vivien Leigh

#49. I have mainly been interested in acting. I think it's a great job, a fine way to live your life.

Jack Nicholson

#50. Music has a great power for bringing people together. With so many forces in this world acting to drive wedges between people, it's important to preserve those things that help us experience our common humanity.

Ted Turner

#51. Great acting can be almost a psychotic mix of self-consciousness and unself-consciousness. And thats the terrible conflict. You have to be free to jump off into that volcano and you have to be pathologically self-conscious.

Alec Baldwin

#52. The concealment of art by the actor is as great a mark of genius as it is in the painter.

Francois Delsarte

#53. You'll never really be great unless you aim high.

Stella Adler

#54. I'm interested in the spirits of people. In the theatre, there's the acting part of acting - and I'm not saying that can't be great - and there's the essence. To explore that essence, you need a key, a look, a gesture, an insight that unlocks the person's soul.

Ralph Fiennes

#55. I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting.

Jason Statham

#56. 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

#57. You will fail. That's great. Here's a secret for you - that's the only way you can learn. Learning has to cost you something. If you fail but learn something from your failure, you will grow.

Stella Adler

#58. Whether he's doing great acting or not, you're seeing somebody who is in the tradition of a great actor. What he does with it, that's something else, but he's got it all. The talent, the instrument is there, that's why he has endured.

Al Pacino

#59. It's a good time for me to pursue acting, I suppose since I'm enjoying having another medium in which to express myself. I've been getting a great response to my work.

Lenny Kravitz

#60. I'm a big fan of all the Boston guys that are acting - Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg - they made a great career out of it, and they found a way to do it and still be cool guys, so that's kind of where I want to be.

Kenny Wormald

#61. I watched a film with a very famous, great, great actor, I won't mention his name because everyone loves his memory, but I thought, "God he was acting a lot." Great actor, but nonstop acting. Wall to wall, fitted-carpet acting.

Anthony Hopkins

#62. Acting is something I love. It's a great craft that I have a lot of respect for. But I don't think it's any greater challenge than teaching 8-year-olds or any other career. In my life, I try not to make it more important than it is and I just hope that rubs off on the people around me.

Hugh Jackman

#63. Kids are a great excuse for you to stop acting like one.

Michael Madsen

#64. Running has been great for keeping me fit throughout my acting career.

Jason Flemyng

#65. One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that's something I figured out pretty early on.

Michael Shannon

#66. 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

#67. They're called 'action scenes' because they do the acting for you. You don't have to act in action scenes. The action does it all for you. It's great.

Helen Mirren

#68. I didn't intend to even become an actor. I was studying fashion, and I think acting just happened by chance. It really felt more like I was watching a movie from outside, like it was happening to someone else. It's been a great journey so far.

Sonakshi Sinha

#69. ...as an actor there's nothing better than a great moody moment to play with nothing to say. It's so much easier to do because you can really get inside your head.

Ewan McGregor

#70. Secrets are great for acting. Secrets are the best thing in the world for acting, because they keep you looking like you have something in the back of your mind.

Alison Pill

#71. I love doing action scenes, there's that great thing when you sort of stop acting because if you're running, you're not acting like you're running, you are just actually running.

Sarah Wayne Callies

#72. I think great acting is about inhabiting a skin and transforming yourself.

David Ayer

#73. Rajni Sir is very dedicated and punctual. It was great experience acting with him both as a person and as an actor. The way he maintains himself is amazing.

Nayantara

#74. The great thing about acting is that you get to be a lot of different things in one lifetime. You get to explore different personalities and characters.

Eva Amurri

#75. Acting as a career is a long term thing and that work is kind of progressive and you can build on a career. It's part of the great tradition of the theater to me.

Sigourney Weaver

#76. The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists.

Leslie Howard

#77. When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.

John Cleese

#78. I moved to New York in '92 and got my graduate degree in acting from NYU - they have a great acting program. I graduated in '95.

David Costabile

#79. When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.

Leslie Easterbrook

#80. When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting.

Steve Buscemi

#81. I call this book The Intent to Live because great actors don't seem to be acting, they seem to be actually living.

Larry Moss

#82. Chilling Tales For Dark Nights, these people or let's say these team is trying to return the fear, the theater... Which so far is great to hear, acting in reading a story and everything one place, just awesome,

Deyth Banger

#83. I learned a lot about acting - watching not just myself but other actors and learning how to distinguish between two great takes. It's also about one's own taste in performance.

Ralph Fiennes

#84. The great thing about acting is the longer you do it, the more you realize that all those realities are inside you. No matter how crazy they are, you can pretend that they are a part of you. The great thing about this job is you get to play with every aspect of your id and who you are.

Matthew Lillard

#85. All great art comes from a sense of outrage.

Glenn Close

#86. There's a great deal of child left in me and acting is fun. It's a make believe thing.

David Canary

#87. Acting is kind of a calling for me so I'm just happy to be there and do great work.

John Leguizamo

#88. Next to acting, being in the great outdoors is my biggest passion.

Seth Numrich

#89. For as long as I've been acting, I have been very lucky to be paired with really great actresses playing my mom.

Rico Rodriguez

#90. I've stopped showing actors what to actually do. I rather just talk to them about it. Then I usually play music. That's a great way to convey inner emotion, bring the power of style and acting together. That's really what it is, very good acting without talking.

Nicolas Winding Refn

#91. When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

David Suchet

#92. I get to meet fantastic people, and I get to go through so many emotions. For me, I have a craving for that. When I'm acting, I feel great. It's not to be famous.

Christopher Parker

#93. I think the great thing about acting is that it's not all the same. You're constantly challenged and constantly pushed to your limit. It's nice to see how your body can adapt to these things.

Liana Liberato

#94. For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

#95. For actors, when you first get the project and you see that it's a Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman-produced project, right away, from an acting standpoint, you go, 'Wow. That'd be great to be part of that. What a career move that'd be.'

Jon Seda

#96. I never thought of acting as a creative process. Christ, I used to go to the movies and see Brando talking like he was trying to sell shoes, and he was great. I thought anybody could do it. Then I tried it, and I got so uptight, I'm limited as to what I can do on film.

Kris Kristofferson

#97. I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who had dark hair, and she and I were representing the Italians. And I thought: Is that what an Italian looked like?

Al Pacino

#98. What people regard as vanity - leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten - I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.

Paulo Coelho

#99. I love talking about acting. I'm just such a fan of actors and filmmakers, and I try to choose roles where I get to talk to great actors about acting and learn.

Jessica Chastain

#100. When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.

Lauren Bacall