Top 100 Great Actor Quotes
#1. 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
#2. 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
#3. 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
#4. Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't know if you'd call him a great actor, but he's amazing in terms of his presence, and he is interesting enough that you want to watch him.
F. Murray Abraham
#5. When you're casting a movie and when you're shooting a film, the eyes are the most important feature of any performer, really. Any great actor literally knows exactly how to use their eyes, and even as a filmmaker I love shooting huge close-ups because it's those eyes that mean so much to me.
Peter Jackson
#6. I think Ryan Gosling is a really great actor who's meticulous about his work. And I'd love to have the guts that Johnny Depp has to actually go outside the box on a character. When he plays a character, he plays it in a way that nobody else would.
Ashton Kutcher
#8. It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.
Sam Mendes
#9. Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.
Gary Oldman
#10. Classics stay alive because a great actor or a great director wants to do them.
Scott Rudin
#11. I'm not a great actor - let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink. There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good.
Steve McQueen
#12. The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in ... the part he plays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#13. A great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or in verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered.
Lee Strasberg
#14. 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
#15. People told me, when I was coming through the ranks, that a mark of a great actor is one who deals with the period of unemployment as well as they deal with the period of employment.
Claudia Black
#16. 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
#17. Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil.
W.C. Fields
#18. Josh Brolin is an actor that I really, really like; he's fantastic. I worked with him once; he's a really great actor.
Rob Zombie
#19. Nicolas Cage is a great actor and he's done some good action movies too.
Dolph Lundgren
#20. What I hope in my ideal world is that with each project, I'll either get to work with a really great script that would force me to grow, or work with a really great actor who will make me better.
Laura Linney
#22. We want the best actor, and that's why Matt Damon worked so well in this role, because he's a great actor.
Bobby Farrelly
#23. The great thing about Eminem is, he's just hysterical. You forget, people like Eminem because he is riotously funny. And he's a great actor.
Judd Apatow
#24. It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.
Annette Bening
#25. Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.
Larry Merchant
#26. I didn't come to Hollywood to drink or get high, and I don't want to be considered a cool actor - I want to be a great actor.
Tom Sizemore
#27. You always absorb a lot from a great actor. What you want, as an actor, no matter where you are in your career, is a partner who's going to bring everything they have to the scene.
Julianne Moore
#28. Jamie Dornan is one of those guys who has no idea how gorgeous he is. He's crazy in love with his girlfriend and a crazy talent and a great singer and a great actor; just a lovely, lovely human being. It kind of makes you want to throw up a bit, but in all the right ways!
Jennifer Morrison
#29. Nick Lea is a great actor, and doing scenes with him was always awesome.
Matt Dallas
#30. I never pretended to be a great actor.
Joel McCrea
#31. When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.
Lauren Bacall
#32. To be a good actor, you have to be very smart. But to be a great actor, you also have to have a streak of, 'I'm an idiot, a complete lunatic.'
Lena Olin
#33. Superstars come and go. I want to make sure I am always a producer's actor. I may be refused to be called a great actor but I have never troubled any of my producers in my life. Honesty always catches the camera, and that is what my strength is.
Akshay Kumar
#34. I want to be remembered as a great actor - and a shining example of humanity.
Jesse L. Martin
#35. To be a great actor, you really don't need to go to acting school or learn dance classes or work on your body. You have to be intelligent. You have to draw on a lot of emotions that you go through in life that you can tap into once you work on a set.
Ranbir Kapoor
#36. When they say I'm a great actor, I close my ears because it's not good for you to think that way.
Jack Nicholson
#37. I think part of what makes someone a great actor is being able to walk into a situation emotionally available and open, and have all your guards down, and just have that level of trust and security in yourself to know that you could walk out on that limb with someone else and be safe.
Katie Aselton
#38. Matt Damon is a great actor, and he's from Boston, so we've got a few things in common. I've seen him throw a football, though. He definitely needs to work on that.
Tom Brady
#39. I've come to this conclusion: What makes a great actor is great need. A huge need of acting.
Simon Callow
#40. A bunch of six nicer people, I couldn't be more fortunate to call my family - from Lee Pace, who is so dear. When I first saw him, I said he's like a Gary Cooper. He's bashful, he's shy, he's sensitive, he's a great actor, he's beautiful, he's delicious.
Ellen Greene
#41. The secret of being a great actor is a love of food.
Yash Chopra
#42. Acting, music, painting ... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.
Billy Boyd
#43. Working with a great actor is really educational.
Gia Coppola
#44. A successful swindler has to be a great salesman even more than a great actor.
David Suchet
#45. If I have enough ego to say I'm a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.
Peter Fonda
#46. To be a great actor you just need to comprehend, so that's why I became a writer.
Johnathon Schaech
#47. A great actor is simply just seeing him or herself, and reacting to what exists around them.
Shailene Woodley
#48. I never will believe there is such a thing as a great actor.
Robert Mitchum
#49. I always thought that Elvis could have been a great actor, and that he was put in a lot of unimportant movies when he could have done a lot of great ones.
Patti Page
#50. Michael Caine is a movie star, but he's also a great actor. I can't say that about every movie star. It's the concentration he has.
Norman Jewison
#51. I thought the best route to being the great actor I wanted to be was to play the great classical parts.
Stephen Mangan
#52. There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.
Sam Mendes
#53. As much as there are intellectual choices to be made and all the rest of it, a great actor has the ability really, to disappear and lose themself in a kind of mystical fashion. My appreciation and fascination with true acting is really all over the book, definitely.
Rebecca Miller
#54. I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.
Jon Lovitz
#55. [on why he considers Marlon Brando and Jean-Louis Trintignant to be his favorite actors] They don't externalize or project everything. They keep a mystery within themselves, and that I think is the sign of a truly great actor, to be able to maintain that.
Michael Haneke
#56. The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.
Jessamyn West
#57. A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.
Alan Alda
#58. When I was 11, I played the part of Rumpelstiltskin, and my teacher told me I would make a great actor.
Brian Blessed
#59. Actors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself.
William Manchester
#60. I'm a big Pacino fan. He's a great actor: so much passion and intensity.
Judah Friedlander
#61. I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it's very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I'm not a great actor, so if the material isn't good, I'm in torment while I do it.
Norm MacDonald
#62. I was lucky to grow up with phenomenal parents who were into talking about things. When something hit me hard as a kid, we'd just talk about it. I'm usually pretty open about what's going on with me. I'm not a great actor in the sense that I can't fake it if I'm going through something difficult.
Eric Lange
#63. You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.
Mark Rylance
#64. Listen, I like great actors. You can be a movie star without being a great actor - this has been proved several times - and I like my casts to have great actors. Acting is more important to me than being a star.
Jose Padilha
#65. One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.
Roger Ebert
#66. I've long been a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor. I think he's a great actor. He's my kind of guy. He does what I aspire to do.
Garret Dillahunt
#67. Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.
Ellen Terry
#68. My brother was scouted for a commercial when he was three, and it was just because he could speak clearly and was well behaved, basically. I don't think he had any amazing acting ability at that age - although he is actually a great actor.
Rose McIver
#69. Its only when you are a great actor and are recognised for your good work that you become famous. Unless you are in the news for the wrong reasons!
Christine Lahti
#70. I've never seen a great actor do a major role that didn't cost a lot. They're sacrificial animals of a sort.
Tony Kushner
#71. You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.
Denis Leary
#72. 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
#73. Gary Oldman is impossible to steal a movie from. He's such a great actor, he's off the hook. I love him.
Kevin Bacon
#74. And my dad, you're a great actor but you're a better father.
Angelina Jolie
#75. Shammiji is said to be India's answer to Elvis Presley, but I say that Elvis Presley is America's answer to Shammi Kapoor. The mark of a good actor is the belief with which he gives a shot and Shammiji gave his each shot with a strong belief and that makes him a great actor of all times.
Aamir Khan
#77. One guy told me I was a great actor, I just would never be on the cover of a magazine.
Ben Affleck
#78. I like the Baldwin boys a great deal. Alec is super-smart, super-articulate, almost too smart to be an actor.
Anthony LaPaglia
#79. 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
#80. 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
#81. 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
#82. You make that climb, take it step by step and hopefully the view is great. I try to be a friend for Miley. I know that's not everyone's parenting style. But I try to be a friend, a partner as a singer, actor, songwriter and let her be a teenage girl and do her thing.
Billy Ray Cyrus
#83. There are tons of different reasons why you do TV series and why you don't, and how it'll affect your career, and all that. Without a doubt, it has always come down to the script for me. I'm an actor who wants to do great parts, and I've been very fortunate, for a long time, to get meaty roles.
Patrick Wilson
#84. An actor equals, sometimes, an entitled baby. People take care of things for me, and they pay greater attention to things than I was ever capable of doing. But in the last few years, I have learned a great deal more about taking care of things. I pay my own bills now.
Christian Slater
#85. For any actor, it's a great privilege to play a character that is very distant from yourself.
James Norton
#86. It is tragic that we have lost one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life. Heath Ledger's diverse and challenging roles will be remembered as some of the great performances by an Australian actor.
Kevin Rudd
#88. My father was and is a great father. My father always wanted to do stand-up. He wanted to be an actor. But instead he did two jobs. He did customer service at a hospital and he worked as a waiter at night. He pretty much sacrificed everything for his daughters.
Sherri Shepherd
#89. Jake Johnson wanted to make clear that he was the great American actor, not just the funny guy on 'New Girl.'
Colin Trevorrow
#90. Every end of the day is a great movie and the Sun above is surely the leading actor in this film!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#91. I thought, 'Oh, this is great,' because maybe someone who does look like me will watch 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and realize that they can be an actor if they want to be, or they can be a superhero. They can have a hero that looks like them as well.
J. August Richards
#92. If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.
Steve Coogan
#94. Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground.
Eddie Marsan
#95. As an actor, it's more interesting to play a nerd than anything else. It's a lot more fun - you don't worry about 'what's my hair like?' in the morning or 'which is my great angle?'
Nicholas Brendon
#96. It was great as an actor to be given the story line I was given but I didn't expect Craig to stay so it was a lovely twist when I found out they'd decided to keep him.
Richard Fleeshman
#97. It's always a really great thing to have an actor that does make you want to up your game. It naturally motivates you to do and try things that maybe you wouldn't necessarily do or try.
Johnny Galecki
#98. There aren't as many roles, and I think there's a lack of openness in casting an Asian character in a leading role or unless they're a stereotype. It's been hard. I've been able to play some non-stereotypical roles, which is great, but I have a lot of Asian actor friends who are struggling.
Kimiko Glenn
#99. One of the great bonuses of being a film actor is that I get to go to different places, meet inspiring people and learn different things. So all those details add up.
Nicolas Cage
#100. One thing that's great about being a character actor is that a movie doesn't rest on your shoulders. If it bombs, it won't hurt my career.
Joe Pantoliano
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
