Quotes About Acting

I was a B student in math, simply because my teachers liked me, as an actor.

Paul Gleason played the teacher. I just tortured him as best I could. 'Cause he wasn't one of the kids, you know, so it was okay. He was great.

I learned never to listen to acting teachers because they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.

Anaïs, I only thought I loved you before; it was nothing like this certainty that's in me now. Was all this so wonderful only because it was brief and stolen? Were we acting for each other, to each other?

The secret of my lies must be that which makes for good acting. I never plunge into a lie carelessly, without first telling myself: "How would I feel if this were true?

Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognise that they are artificially composed.

I always play women I would date.

We follow our scripts like actors in a very large, very long production. And even with no audience, none of us gives a hint that it isn't real.

It was endlessly tricky being in the know. It was a state Carmen had a achieved with a certain bravado, but she found it difficult to maintain. Without Jones, she could easily slip out of the know, relapse into her natural eagerness, and probably never get hired for another part in her life.

He for a considerable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.

To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

It would never occur to me to wear pink, just as it would never occur to Michael Douglas to play a poor person.

I have not often seen more natural acting than that of these masks. It is such acting as can only be sustained by a remarkably happy talent and long practice. While I am writing this, they are making a tremendous noise on the canal under my window, though it is past midnight. Whether for good or for evil, they are always doing something.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

I'm sick of playing romantic leads.

Acting can be pretty challenging. I can't say making a romantic comedy is challenging, but to do anything well, you have to put yourself into it.

With acting, you wanna see if you can get into trouble without knowing how you're gonna get out of it. It's like the exact opposite of war, where you need an exit strategy. When you're acting, you should get all the way into trouble with no exit strategy, and have the cameras rolling.

I didn't want to get into acting just to play bystanders. I feel a bystander enough in my own life. And I do think that theatre can contribute to a certain analysis and commentary on our own world.

Hollywood typecast me as the secretary. I could have worked as the quirky secretary for the rest of my life, but I decided not to do that.

I'd wanted to be [an actress] all my life.

What I went into the acting business for was to have a certain amount of chaos in my life. I don't know what I'm doing next. It's exciting. That's the way I like it.

I certainly never expected to be in front of a camera one day of my life.