Quotes About Acting

Man is an actor who plays various parts: First comes a boy, then out a lover starts; His garb is changed for, lo! a beggar?s rags; Then he?s a merchant with full money-bags; Anon, an aged sire, wrinkled and lean; At last Death drops the curtain on the scene.*

There's no mystique to acting. It's only common sense - and a bit of courage.

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.

One of the things I like about acting is that, in a funny way, I come back to myself.

Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: 'What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.'

I like being in kids' movies, and I like being in family movies.

I also turn down what's probably a good amount of coinage to be made out of playing dads, an incredible number of obnoxious dad.

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

I think acting is all about the other people. Sounds like a worthy thing to say, but it's true.

I wanted to go to drama school, but when I got the part in 'Falling,' I got an agent, so it seemed a good idea to work. I always did a lot of singing and dancing, so I am glad it worked out that way. I would like to study stage acting at some point, though.

The only way to make a scene realistic is to do it the way you know it would really happen.

We went down for pilot season, I got Full House, and we wound up never leaving.

After 'The White Shadow' was over, I did some more work, but then I wound up taking a year off to teach at Harvard. It afforded me the chance to have a variegated career - a very interesting one.

My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too.

The fact that I wound up doing television and film was just a thing that happened, but I was trained for the theater, and what goes on in the theater has nothing to do with special effects.

I quit acting when I was 11 because I was cast as a bouncing ball in 'Alice in Wonderland,' and I felt slighted and wounded.

I suppose I had a soulful quality. I was often cast as a wounded person, the 'sensitive' role.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Everything shifted for me after 'Rush.' It wasn't as financially successful as other things I'd done, but it gave me more movement, more options, more doors opening, more meetings. All of a sudden, it's, 'Oh, wow! You're an actor!'

When I chose to do 'Carrie,' I never had done anything on camera before. I was always onstage, so everything surprised me. Just going on set and walking into a makeup trailer and seeing Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore - 'Wow, I am part of this ensemble.'

A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it's going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, 'Wow, that movie' - or that show or whatever - 'turned out really well.'

There are certain actors you watch in a movie, and you think, 'Wow, that guy is very skilled.'

When you watch it, you're like, Wow. I look like that. But it doesn't feel like that at all. It was about communicating with Gale Harold and getting across what I wanted to say about the character.

In college, I was teetering on the edge: Do I want to be an actor? Do I not want to be an actor? And then I saw Michael Caine in 'Alfie,' and I thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do with my life,' even if I knew I'd never reach that level of proficiency.