Top 100 Quotes About Film Actors
#1. I don't think film actors need training, really.
Paul Giamatti
#2. Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer ... or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded
the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original]
Chuck Palahniuk
#3. Film actors reach a certain level, but they don't get beyond it unless they work in the theater.
Shirley Knight
#4. You fight for certain roles, and you realise they're being filled by television and film actors, because theatre is constantly fighting for survival and they need names and faces and ticket sales.
Richard C. Armitage
#5. Cats act with their eyes. They are the small, silent film actors of their time, and they are vastly underrated.
Jenny Lawson
#6. I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.
Anne-Marie Duff
#7. People on series are now given a lot more opportunities, sometimes more than film actors.
Alyssa Milano
#8. It used to be that you kind of got pigeonholed into one thing - you're either a stage actor or a TV actor or a movie actor. Today, there's a lot of crossover with film actors doing television, which never happened before, so those lines are a little bit more blurred than they used to be.
Aaron Tveit
#9. I think a lot of theater actors that were great, like Walken or Glenn Close, later became film actors.
Sam Rockwell
#10. Some film actors want to sit back and look at every scene and all that crap. No, you're an actor - tell the story, and when it's told, there's another one to tell.
Clarke Peters
#11. The barrier between TV and movies has come down and film actors are willing to do TV and vice versa, because they just want to follow what's interesting.
Tina Fey
#12. I appreciate film actors who respect the film making process.
Logan Lerman
#13. There is a strange pecking order among actors. Theatre actors look down on film actors, who look down on TV actors. Thank God for reality shows, or we wouldn't have anybody to look down on.
George Clooney
#15. I have a theory ... Theatre actors are better at auditions than film actors.
Shaun Sipos
#16. Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It's not for the acting, that's for sure.
Bill Murray
#17. I try to steal from the best. Suck it all in. 'Taxi Driver' is really a bible for film actors, a master class. A lot of emotional power, a lot of emotional depth but it's contained and you just see the tip of the iceberg.
Sam Rockwell
#18. You have film actors doing TV, rap stars doing TV, with everyone kind of crossing the line.
Anthony Michael Hall
#19. The way the recession has affected Hollywood, a lot of actors that had robust opportunities before in film no longer have such plum options, so cable has done a good job of becoming a happy medium for artists deemed film actors.
Omari Hardwick
#20. I think Americans are wonderful film actors - the best in the world - but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.
Julian Fellowes
#21. As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace.
Lee Daniels
#22. You create this situation where you are so dependent on each other. That's especially true for film. In theater, the actor has much more say, much more control, for better or worse.
Susan Sarandon
#23. Movie actors disappear - any young person wouldn't know Cary Grant. They're going to disappear. Fifty years ago, you thought film was here to stay. But nothing is here to stay, actually - except perhaps paintings and drawings.
David Hockney
#24. I come from the theater, so for me rehearsal is vital and a way of life. There are many film directors who don't believe in it and some actors who prefer not to rehearse.
Hugh Jackman
#25. Here's the thing about movies, all movies end up on television. That's their life. Whether you like it or not, I don't care how much money you spend on it, or how big or broad the film is, or who the actors are in it, eventually it's all coming out of the box.
Greg Kinnear
#26. To have a director that loves his actors is something that you can see in the film and in the fruits of that labor. You can see that translated in the film. When you watch such movie, you can see a director who loves his actors, and it shines through the movie, in my eyes.
Vin Diesel
#27. Whenever I've been asked to be in a film, directors only want me to play myself ... I'm fascinated by the thought of being an actor, but it's too hard. And I think Shakespeare-which has been suggested to me-might be a bit of a stretch.
Tom Jones
#28. My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.
Josh Radnor
#29. In film, movies' schedules are based on three things: actors' availabilities, when are sets being built, when you can rent the place you're going to film in.
Kevin Spacey
#30. It's amazing that for actors mostly, it's a risk to attach yourself to a film that you don't know whether or not it's going to even be made and if you sign on, in doing so, who else is going to be in the movie with you.
Elisha Cuthbert
#31. Unfortunately for the 'Tomorrow' series, I feel that for the actors that were in the first film, maybe our commitment to it is done.
Caitlin Stasey
#32. I really feel that if I did another [Narnia] film I'd just be repeating myself and I don't really want to do that as an actor.
Skandar Keynes
#33. When you deal with a film that takes place in Europe, and you're going to work in English, you'd better work with European actors.
Norman Jewison
#34. I did short film with Damian Lewis from Homeland, that was a really incredible experience. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with. Even though that's a short film for Jaguar that's really, in essence, a commercial, it didn't feel like it, at all.
Shannyn Sossamon
#35. The scariest people to turn a movie over to are always the people who are drawing up the poster, because that's the first impression it's going to make. And very often it's portraying a very different film from the one the actors actually did.
Jesse Eisenberg
#36. I don't like making a film and having the actors in character too much in magazines and on the net and everything else. Because you want to keep something back.
Graham King
#37. Composers and lyricists are not responsible for storyline and casting. One can imagine actors shouldering this responsibility, since they charge for half the film. But producers never ask actors to share the losses. Instead, they train their guns on composers and lyricists.
Shaan
#38. I got to work with Dustin Hoffman on a film called 'Billy Bathgate.' I got to work with Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn and Bob Zemeckis on 'Death Becomes Her.' There are still a few actors out there that I would like to work with.
Bruce Willis
#39. I am really attracted to films. It's nice to do something new, all the time. That's why I like being an actor.
Jane Levy
#40. Yes, he wanted me to do Funny Games before, which I didn't want to do because the film was very theoretical - the way people experience violence on screen. There was very little space for fiction, it was more like a sacrifice for the actors than anything else.
Isabelle Huppert
#41. The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.
Abbas Kiarostami
#43. The crossover wasn't happening. TV actors were TV actors, and film and stage actors were a whole different thing. And now there's just a lot of crossover.
Christine Lahti
#44. Film-makers and actors can only show a version of the act, but writers can express what people are thinking, feeling, as well as doing.
Julian Barnes
#45. 'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.
Spike Lee
#46. Directly after Rock Hudson's death came the fears that gay writers and actors and directors would be denied jobs; who knew if they would live long enough to finish a feature film or television series? And would the unions force directors to give blood tests and ban actors who tested positive?
Michael Shnayerson
#47. I'm definitely looking forward to doing a film one day with more female actors.
Margot Robbie
#48. Casting is so important, with any film you do. You have to get actors that you believe will fulfill the promise of the characters that are on the page.
Jerry Bruckheimer
#49. For film at the beginning of the 20th century, they didn't even know what editing was yet. Actors didn't know how to perform in front of the camera. There wasn't sound.
Tom Bissell
#50. All of these stars, the most powerful actors in film, they were all gone in an instant.
Chuck Palahniuk
#51. Making a film is so hard that if you don't have your main actors going along with the ride with the rest of the crew it can make your life very difficult.
Alan Parker
#52. Gradually the live TV scene simmered out, replaced by film, and that took place in L.A. So many actors left New York.
William Shatner
#53. You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating.
Thom Powers
#54. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.
Lupita Nyong'o
#55. We're big fans of the show on BBC, and some of the greatest actors in film and television have done this character, from Basil Rathbone to Nicol Williamson to Michael Caine. (Executive producer) Rob Doherty came in with the pitch last season, it was immediately a show that we gravitated towards.
Nina Tassler
#56. 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
#57. Once a film gets into production, the actors sometimes begin to have more input than a writer does.
Helen Mirren
#58. My pictures are not really about the children that I photograph. They're more like actors in a film. I think you can always recognize the children, but they are alienated from their real appearance and become more like metaphors.
Loretta Lux
#59. That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?
Peter Dinklage
#60. Brain-imaging studies of drug users at that stage show that viewing a film of actors pretending to use drugs activates dopamine pathways in the brain more than does watching porn films. This
Robert M. Sapolsky
#61. I have very strong relationships with my actors when I'm shooting. When you love an actor's work, you always feel you have to go further, and you make several films together. One film just gives you time to get acquainted.
Claire Denis
#62. I've dealt with a few method actors, and I don't know if should say this, but I think it's a bunch of nonsense. I think it's film acting and you just have to be on when the camera is rolling.
Natalie Portman
#63. A film is born in my head and I kill it on paper. It is brought back to life by the actors and then killed in the camera. It is then resurrected into a third and final life in the editing room where the dismembered pieces are assembled into their finished form.
Robert Bresson
#64. I'm not an actor - and I've got 64 films to prove it!
Victor Mature
#65. It is about time that TV actors were paid as well as film stars.
Mona Singh
#66. Most of the film directors expect their actors to want to work fast.
Yvonne Strahovski
#67. I personally believe the film turns out better when shot in one short schedule, plus it doesn't stress the actors.
Shah Rukh Khan
#68. I don't think any actors love taking their clothes off on film, unless you're an exhibitionist, which I'm certainly not.
Tamsin Egerton
#69. 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
#70. My first job was a film called 'Storm Damage' for the BBC. I was 16 and working with really respected British actors. I didn't have an agent at the time, and it kind of threw me into real acting.
Ashley Madekwe
#71. I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting.
Jim Jarmusch
#72. There are three things that are important for a film. Number one is story, number two is story, number three is story. Good actors can save a bad script and make it bearable, but good actors can't make a bad script good - they can just make it bearable.
Mark Strickson
#73. When you're working on a film, it's almost like photographing paintings at a museum. You're photographing somebody else's world. I just try and interpret it and make it real, and make it what the actors are about, what the director is about, and what the film is about.
Mary Ellen Mark
#74. The greatest all-around American film actor is James Stewart.
David Denby
#75. As far back as I can remember, these are the first movies, the Universal horror movies where I knew the title of the film and I also knew the names of the actors in those films.
Benicio Del Toro
#76. Casting a film, you can have the greatest actors in a film and it doesn't work. It's a combination of all of the elements.
Stellan Skarsgard
#77. There are two parts of me. There's the really critical, film-nerd part of me that loves that, and then there's the part of me where I'm like, "I really didn't like that movie, but I want to work with that director because he loves actors."
Anton Yelchin
#78. As a painter you're responsible yourself, 100 percent. In film, you have the editor, the director, the other actors. It has the advantage of not being solitary.
Sylvia Kristel
#79. There wasn't even a movie theater in the town. Nothing. Not even any fast food chains of any kind. Regardless, I knew that I was going to leave and become an actor, and be in film and television, and I've done it.
Kristen Hager
#80. A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.
Peter Dinklage
#81. There are so many stage actors on TV but you wouldn't know they were stage actors. And film and TV actors are going to the stage as well, so the crossover is great now.
Matthew Morrison
#82. It always bothered me when people came off stage and were told how great they were. They weren't, really, in my opinion. It was then I started thinking that, contrary to conventional wisdom, film was the artful medium for the actor, not the stage.
Jack Nicholson
#83. I thought 'I can't be an actor, I can't'. Then this film came up and it was like someone saying to me, 'You can, don't give up'.
Keisha Castle-Hughes
#84. Actors' performances do not stand alone in any film, live action or whatever.
Andy Serkis
#85. Film is mostly a visual medium, and so the director has much more control in terms of painting pictures and painting a performance. For theater, the director does everything he can and then says, 'Out you go,' and the actors are in charge of that stage every night.
David Lindsay-Abaire
#86. The atmosphere and the environment that you get on a Chris Nolan film that he and Emma [Tomson] create is one where you feel very safe and very confident and able to experiment with characters. It's a great place to be as an actor.
Christopher Nolan
#87. We work so hard as young artists to further our careers or improve our technique, sometimes it gets so easy to not actually go and see things like a play or a film. I think the best way to get better is to see other actors do what they do well.
Juliet Rylance
#88. Once I went to film school, I realized that film directing was actually much better than theater directing, because you kind of get to stay in control of it all the way through. You don't relinquish the piece to the actors like you have to in theater; you stay in control through the very end.
Mark Waters
#89. I wouldn't say no to being in a film with Jude Law. I love English actors.
Catherine Deneuve
#90. Runners are the lowest of the low in film units. They're paid very, very minimal wages - probably below the national average. And runners are now being asked to drive actors about, as well as their runner duties. It's kind of the same as taking advantage of nurses - it's appalling.
Charles Dance
#91. A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit.
Danny Boyle
#92. You have the massive world that was created by Marvel, and then you have these very intimate actors around you. There was as much character work on this as there would be on a little independent film. So, I felt very fortunate in that sense.
Chris Hemsworth
#93. The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.
Eric Stoltz
#94. I don't rehearse with my actors ... the first rehearsal is the first time we turn the camera on ... Sydney Pollack never rehearsed his actors, and I found out that's allowed ... so you film reactions; you don't create them.
Ira Sachs
#95. Film directing has perfected my theater directing. I think when I first started directing, a lot of my stuff was very lateral; I was afraid to have the actors' backs turned away, afraid to put them too far upstage, and I think once I did more things with film, I got more interested in composition.
Adam Rapp
#96. Violence is used to portray what happens in a film. It only helps portray the actors and what they do. I think it is more about the story, when you have something to play off of.
Jake Lloyd
#97. Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.
Max Von Sydow
#98. I love working with Scorsese. He's not only a brilliant director and is great working with actors, but he's also a walking human film encyclopedia. It's fun to talk about movies with him.
Steve Buscemi
#99. There's a lot of great stuff on television and that's very appealing to actors who want to work, who do good quality and high quality work. But you're always concerned that the time demands on television will interrupt or interfere with your film work.
Wesley Snipes
#100. I love directing because you get to see your film come to life. You get to work with the actors. There's something magical about each piece of it.
Dee Rees
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