Quotes About Acting

When I am offered a film, I don't ask whether I will be singing any of the movie's tracks.

Claire Danes in 'Homeland' just blew me away. She is so intuitive, and her choices are so unique. When you see somebody like that work, you just have to stop in your tracks. It is a lesson in what good acting really is, and it is so inspiring to be around.

Driving a tractor never appealed to me. But I never wanted to go into business. Had I not accidentally fallen into acting, I would probably have gone home from college and farmed.

I was lucky, and once I moved to L.A., I didn't have to get another job besides acting. But I wouldn't trade my previous jobs for anything.

I'm not an outstanding personality, and I'm certainly no beauty. Acting ability is all I've got to trade on.

I think there is a lot of loss in being a professional child actor. All of a sudden, you start to want to be an adult at the age of 8 or 9. I never did kid stuff, so to speak, so I was in many ways ostracized by the other kids. But I did get this other life, so it was a trade-off.

I always liked acting in school and drama classes, but when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always told them I wanted to be a singer. I didn't want to be a jack of all trades. I wanted to master one.

Deep down, all directors feel like frauds - because it's built into the nature of the job. You're the jack of all trades and the master of none. The cameraman knows the camera, the sound man knows the sound equipment - and you? You can't do anything: You can't do the acting, you can't dress the set, you don't record the sound or shoot the images.

I love 'Trading Places,' but 'Coming to America' has one of the things I like to do - I like the multiple characters.

Acting and writing go together. Actors write because they love words and becoming other people - we love to escape into other characters.

I had been very close to Anne Bancroft when we worked together in The Miracle Worker

Once your acting job is over, you just hope they have a good editor and they put together a good film.

They never let Rider [Strong] and I do scenes together because we would look at each other and start laughing.

Since Catherine [Zeta-Jones] and I got together, I've cut back dramatically. My priorities changed, and I still love acting and all that, but not as much as I love watching my two kids grow up.

In 2002 Mom and I got a chance to act together in a play called 'Pitching to the Star,' with her brother, Robert Lipton. The three of us on the same stage - that was such a special experience for me.

I felt like Jason Behr and I had such a unique chemistry. He just walked in and we started reading together, it was just there

Filmmaking is a very complex form - ya know, acting, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, music, editing - all these things have to come together.

I love to do movies. That's something that I find so much joy in, in being able to travel around and play new characters.

It doesn't happen all the time, but in the moments where you really lose yourself and you fall into this character, it's like time travel.

If you were a kid actor, if you had any plans of being an actor as an adult, you were really barking up the wrong tree.

I did one or two plays at school. Once I played a tree, so I never thought I would be a good actor.

I always thought that's the exact metaphor, the perfect metaphor for acting. To go blind, to ignore the danger, and to totally trust.

Acting is also working with people who invite you into their dreams and trust you with their innermost being.

Good acting is thinking in front of the camera. I just do that and apply a sense of humor to it. You have to trust the audience to get it.