On Acting Quotes

#1. When you're acting, everything is there around you, you just have to believe that it's real. When you're standing there with a slightly grey wig on and you have a baby in your arms screaming in your ear, you can go: "Well, I guess this is what it's like!"

Jim Sturgess

#2. Christians are notorious for acting like used car salesmen, treating non-Christians as if they're standing there holding a blank check and sporting a hard-on for unreliable vehicles.

Orlando Winters

#3. Actors and actresses make magic,' I said. 'They make things happen on the stage; they invent; they create.

Anne Rice

#4. Honestly, I really don't like acting. I don't enjoy it. What I do like is going to a movie theatre and seeing my face on a poster. I like seeing my name on a poster. That is cool.

Gabriel Iglesias

#5. Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.

Christian Bale

#6. I don't like to spend a lot of money on haircuts: I'll sometimes grow my hair and get an acting job and get them to cut it for free. I think for a lady, though, it's okay to spend a lot on a haircut.

Paul Dano

#7. Probably the most fun I've ever had, actually, acting. Because it was the perfect extension of the stuff that I'd started to do on Late Night With David Letterman, and when I look back on all my work, it was probably the best possible incarnation of Chris Elliott, of me.

Chris Elliott

#8. An acting assistant stage manager in a theater in Canterbury, a rep theater. A small wage but just enough to get by on, and I made props and I walked on, and I changed scenery, and I realized that I just loved it.

Jeremy Irons

#9. It's very different. You do so many things in this play. You can't just focus on acting or singing. You have to be good at both. I'm very glad I did this play.

Will Davis

#10. I like working one-on-one with someone, and I think that to go to a school of acting isn't really my thing.

Stella Maeve

#11. Putin must be punished for violating the Budapest Memorandum, and Russia must learn that the U.S. will isolate it if it insists on acting like a rogue nation.

Rand Paul

#12. He shot everything that moved in a blind fury. It was as if he were floating outside his body, his flesh acting on pure animal instinct. To kill or be killed. It was exhilarating.

Rebecca M. Gibson

#13. I went to Brunel University and very much wanted to go on to do a PhD in management, but then my acting career started to take off. In those days when you switched on the box there were hardly any brown or black faces.

Archie Panjabi

#14. In my experience it's not essential to get on with the person that you're acting opposite.

Hugh Dancy

#15. On some level in acting, what you're trying to find is truth, because when it's true is when it's also funny.

David Hyde Pierce

#16. I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

Christopher Gorham

#17. Ballet has really helped me in every acting role. You have to be very disciplined, you have to be able to control your nerves and perform under pressure, and all those things you have to use in acting when you're on film or going for an audition.

Mia Wasikowska

#18. There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

Edmund Burke

#19. Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance.

Noel Coward

#20. Most of my friends all tend to work in restaurants part time, doing acting classes on the side.

Lauren Conrad

#21. Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera. I thought, 'Hey, this will be a really fun story to tell my grandkids one day, that I auditioned for a soap!'

Teddy Sears

#22. I'm always thinking I'm messing up. I did a lot of classes. I can't stand being on stage or the only one talking in a room, so class really helped me deal with that. It doesn't really get any easier, but it helps you focus on the acting.

Travis Fimmel

#23. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies don't face reality very well ... Realism is the heart of execution, but many organizations are full of people who are trying to avoid or shade reality. Why? It makes life uncomfortable.

Lawrence Bossidy

#24. I always think I love work, and I knew early on that I wanted to be an actress. Then I meet people who have truly dedicated their lives to acting, and I realise that I'm so completely in the back seat.

Natascha McElhone

#25. Acting requires a lot of discipline to go with the obsession. It's a path of knowledge, and of self-knowledge. Sometimes you get lost on the path. And then you find yourself again.

Toni Servillo

#26. I've always had a strange acting life. I'm the daughter of a director, and a very French, typical director who fell in love with every single one of his actresses. And that's also something that's kind of normal in the acting business, because everything is based on desire, one way or the other.

Lou Doillon

#27. I'm trying to think how I impressed my wife. We had an on-stage kiss, and I really went for it. Because I liked her. Usually you can get away with it being just technical, but it was a problem when I ended up kissing my wife on the set. I'd say I stopped acting and kissed her on set.

David Walton

#28. He is omnipresent not only virtually but also substantially. ... In him all things are contained and move, but he does not act on them nor they on him. ... He is always and everywhere. ... He is all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all force of sensing, of understanding, and of acting.5

James Gleick

#29. I told everyone that acting's for losers and I needed to get an education. But something kept telling me to give it one last chance. In the end, I lasted a month on the M.B.A. and then decided to quit, come back to L.A., and try again.

Judi Shekoni

#30. I've always wanted to get into acting, ever since I was younger. I'd put on shows for my family and run around play dress-up all the time. I think I was 4 when I told them I wanted to do movies.

Emma Roberts

#31. You know, acting is very fascinating. But being an actress is not, because you become so concentrated on yourself.

Beatrice Wood

#32. It's all about story and character with me, and I don't care if the job is on daytime or prime time or the web. Hey, give me a good character and someone to listen, and I'll do my acting on a street corner.

Justin Hartley

#33. Attraction isn't wrong. People can't help who they are drawn to and they certainly can't control affinity, as uncommon as it is. What is wrong is acting on inclination if it hurts someone else, namely a significant other.

Donna Lynn Hope

#34. Acting is what I'm living and breathing on a day-to-day basis.

Ruby Rose

#35. Fighting is not internal, but it can be very spiritual. Everything acting is internal. One of my problems in making the transition is pulling back, but I'm working on it.

Roddy Piper

#36. Acting for the Indian audience is surely on my bucket list; it may take some time, though.

Pierce Brosnan

#37. When my turn on the program comes, I am not nervous at all - because all this is happening out of time, out of space. I am, for a moment, a figure of my own fantasy, and I play my appointed role as if I were in the movies.

Eva Hoffman

#38. The actual time you're acting is miniscule compared to the time you're getting ready to do the work. The big difference on series television is, there's not a lot of hanging-out time. You're pumping those pages out, you're doing six, seven, eight pages a day. And I like that pace.

Joe Mantegna

#39. Judging is acting on a limited knowledge. Learn the art of observing without evaluating.

Pushpa Rana

#40. I wasn't acting on passion. I was simply acting.

Bret Easton Ellis

#41. When you turn up for work, especially with looking down the barrel of a show, you're hoping the person you're acting opposite of is going to be on your kind of crazy wavelength.

Raza Jaffrey

#42. The caviar was very high quality. I made an acting decision on the spot that Ismay was a big eater.

Jonathan Hyde

#43. The difference between acting badly or brilliantly is not based on your ability, but on the state of your mind and/or body in any given moment.

Tony Robbins

#44. Starting at age four, my mom decided that she was not going to have an idle child in the house. So I started taking dance lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I was in acting classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I was also modeling on Saturdays. And that was my childhood.

Chandra Wilson

#45. Because Naughty Dog relies on their facial team to hand animate the faces of each game character and they do such a remarkable job, I think you can be more realistic with your acting. It gives the story and what's happening to you the feeling that it's a game.

Nolan North

#46. When I was acting, I was always asking abut the mechanics of filmmaking. I decided I would learn what everyone on set was doing, so I would feel less threatened.

Peter Capaldi

#47. It was the most fun I've ever had on a movie. It was one of the happiest times in my life. I was living in New York, and I really enjoyed acting at the time. Also, it's funny because that was also the time when I went downhill.

Mickey Rourke

#48. [President Bush] recently challenged Iraqi soldiers still fighting U.S. troops like so: ... 'My answer is bring 'em on.' For those of you who may be criticizing Bush for acting like a movie cowboy, let me remind you. He's actually acting more like a movie cheerleader.

Jon Stewart

#49. There's a very fine line between underacting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and a dead pan are getting away wit it. I'd hate to see them on stage with a dog act.

Joan Blondell

#50. once your get your hopes up, your mind starts acting on its own. And when your hopes are dashed you get dissapointed, and dissapointment leads to a feeling of helplessness. You get careless and let your guard down. And right now, she though, that si the last thing I can afford.

Haruki Murakami

#51. I don't believe in acting. I think that people in life act, but when you are on the stage or, in my case, also on screen, you have to be true.

Luise Rainer

#52. I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting.

Matisyahu

#53. I went from sort of trying to get work to all of a sudden being signed up for the next few years on something, and something of this scale with some of the best people in the business involved, acting and directing. It was a dream.

Chris Hemsworth

#54. The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.

Billy Zane

#55. I think it's almost better to start [acting] at a later age because you have more stuff to drawm from - more life experience. When you start too young, you grow up on a set.

Josh Duhamel

#56. I began auditioning for acting jobs at the ripe old age of 12. Thirty years later, including a 15-year run on television, I sometimes just get offers for work. Often, however, I am still required to run pell-mell around Los Angeles or New York, interviewing for film and TV jobs.

Diane Farr

#57. I tend to be very private. It's easier for me. When you're acting, you're very susceptible to comments that somebody makes, so if they know something is going to happen on the show, and they say something, it can actually throw you off. So I tend to not share things with anybody.

Tom Noonan

#58. I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.

Miranda Richardson

#59. I've always enjoyed acting. When we were younger, my sisters and I would put on plays for our parents.

Serena Williams

#60. 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

#61. There were time when I was into method acting that I did have moments of residual character emotions, because the method bases your emotional responses as a character on emotional experiences from your real life.

Corin Nemec

#62. If you focus on what you want and you persevere, chances are you succeed. You know, that's what I found. It might not be in acting - it might be in business, financing, it might be in the arts, it might be in anything. But it's all about focusing and being inspired.

Cory Monteith

#63. When people say things like "don't let this moment pass without acting on gun control," what they're really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren't thinking clearly.

Glenn Reynolds

#64. Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

Mark Twain

#65. When I work on a movie, I never aim for records, collections or the number one position. I always concentrate on my work and look for ways to improve my acting abilities. I also advise my co-stars not to concentrate on these pretty issues and just focus on acting.

Mahesh Babu

#66. I'd just like to carry on acting.

Nicholas Hoult

#67. Acting on television is like being asked by the captain to entertain the passengers while the ship goes down.

Peter Ustinov

#68. Since nobody is in a position to substitute his own value judgments for those of the acting individual, it is vain to pass judgment on other people's aims and volitions. No man is qualified to declare what would make another man happier or less discontented.

Ludwig Von Mises

#69. Where I grew up, acting wasn't really accessible. I was just playing sports. But, I did watch a lot of TV. I watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies on TV and had this fantasy of being like him when I grew up.

Bailey Chase

#70. Acting is a bit like tennis in that you can't really do it on your own.

Tom Hiddleston

#71. The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

Ernest Borgnine

#72. Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live.

Ayn Rand

#73. Acting, films, scripts, is literally the only thing I'm 100 percent confident in. I know what I'm doing. I just understand it, and I love it. When I'm on set, that's when I feel the most at home and in control.

Jennifer Lawrence

#74. It's stressful to keep doing audition after audition after audition. You finish one and go to the next one, and you have to learn lines. For me, I have to work on my accent, so I was getting accent coaching and acting coaching. I wanted to make good impressions.

Luke Mitchell

#75. Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up.

Patton Oswalt

#76. In 1998, the acting roles suddenly bottomed out. I was no longer getting scripts; even my agent stopped calling. When I finally got him on the phone to ask him what was going on, he paused, then said: 'Well, Christine, you're 45.' I got rid of him.

Christine Ebersole

#77. Why would you want to act, anyway?" was Seth's take on the subject. "Stand there and say other people's words, let everybody else tell you what to do ... Actors are just beautiful puppets.

Rainbow Rowell

#78. I went to college and got my degree in acting, but because it was all theater, I really consider my first couple years on 'Mad Men' as amazing training for working in television and for acting on-camera.

Gillian Jacobs

#79. 'Evening Shade' was such an eye-opening experience. I was 19 when I went on that show. I had barely had an acting class. So as Burt Reynolds continued to bring me back for the next three years, I learned so much from him and all the other legends that were on the show.

David A.R. White

#80. BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form or devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.

Rob Brezsny

#81. I still say I would love to go back to acting, but after my kids are older. You can't just drop everything and go out on a call and keep a stable life.

Suzanne Crough

#82. I don't see many people with longevity anymore. Everything was harder when I started, and you had to take acting lessons, do theater parts, work on connections and then get lucky. The technology is good, but it's also a hindrance for longevity.

Dustin Diamond

#83. I did a lot of acting when I was a child. I was very shy - the kind of kid who ran into a corner and cried on parents' visiting day.

Adrienne Shelly

#84. Especially since I stared studying acting, I feel like I'm always super-aware of my emotions and my feelings and what's going on with me at every moment.

Mariah Carey

#85. John Ventimiglia, who was on 'The Sopranos,' was in my first acting class and we have been friends since that time. Alec Baldwin was in my class back then, Sean Young and Andrew McCarthy.

Michael Imperioli

#86. Acting is a skill that not only requires talent, but a determination: The willpower to shake off reality and plunge yourself into yourself into a character than you have to act on.

Low Kay Hwa

#87. I suppose, when you start up in acting, you hope to be given challenges, and you always have dreams about the things you could do and couldn't do, but normally we get pigeon-holed a little bit, as we go on in our careers.

John Noble

#88. Everybody should wish they had home movies of themselves, acting out their lunacy on LSD.

John Waters

#89. My first acting experience was a non-speaking role as a robot. My costume was a cardboard box covered in tinfoil, but I was so shy I refused to go on stage.

Jessica Raine

#90. Acting might bring on emotional exhaustion, but writing tired your brains out. Writing led to depression and insomnia and walking around all day with a haggard look.

Richard Yates

#91. I've worked with acting coaches, I've been going out on auditions and meeting with casting directors. But I'm not known as an actress.

Cassie Ventura

#92. To be authentic is literally to be your own author, to discover your own native energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them.

Warren G. Bennis

#93. I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.

Dylan Bruce

#94. When liberals start acting like they're opposed to pre-marital sex and mothers having careers, you know McCain's vice presidential choice has knocked them back on their heels.

Ann Coulter

#95. Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on.

River Phoenix

#96. When I'm acting, I'm in the director's hands. I'm very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I'm doing.

Kenneth Branagh

#97. I keep it real normal, like I don't try to act like a celebrity, or say that just because I'm on a TV show I can do other types of TV. I take it very seriously and I respect the art of acting.

Vinny Guadagnino

#98. For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

Shailene Woodley

#99. We don't think of them as acting, but we take on certain characteristics based on where we function, and those relationships draw out aspects of who we are as people. And that's what acting is. Different parts draw out different parts of your nature.

Peter Riegert

#100. You're still human and the moment you see someone attractive, you can't help but make note of it. It's human nature. Acting on it is a whole other story and that's where I draw the line.

J.A. Redmerski