A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
A young girl must not be taken to the theatre, let us say it once for all. It is not only the drama which is immoral, but the place.
—Alexandre Dumas pere (1802–1870) French Novelist, Playwright
Actors are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; and the height of their ambition is to be beside themselves. They wear the livery of other men’s fortunes: their very thoughts are not their own.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence,—luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition,—are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Show me a great actor and I’ll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you’ve seen the devil.
—W. C. Fields (1880–1946) American Actor, Comedian, Writer
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you—tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Every time I get a script it’s a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It’s like falling in love. You can’t give a reason why.
—Paul Newman (1925–2008) American Actor, Philanthropist
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
It’s a business you go into because you’re an egocentric. It’s a very embarrassing profession.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author
It is with some violence to the imagination that we conceive of an actor belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters they assume upon the stage.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
…the case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend
—Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) British Economist, Social Philosopher
Someplace along the line the audience discovered you. In my case it was playing the Gipper.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
A true priest is aware of the presence of the altar during every moment that he is conducting a service. It is exactly the same way that a true artist should react to the stage all the time he is in the theater. An actor who is incapable of this feeling will never be a true artist.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.
—Roger Moore (1927–2017) English Actor
They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Actors die so loud.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
I’m not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren’t straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.
—Sylvester Stallone (b.1946) American Actor, Film Director, Screenwriter
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
Acting is the perfect idiot’s profession.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The most difficult character in comedy is that of a fool, and he must be no simpleton who plays the part.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor’s hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.
—Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) French Actress
Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts, he does not hide; he exposes himself.
—Jeanne Moreau (1928–2017) French Stage, Screen Actor, Singer
In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
You name it and I’ve done it. I’d like to say I did it my way. But that line, I’m afraid, belongs to someone else.
—Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925–90) American Singer, Musician, Dancer, Actor
Acting doesn’t bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.
—Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American Comedian, TV Personality, Actor
She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity—and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the “woman of wax” whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director
A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.
—Jane Fonda (b.1937) American Actress, Political Activist
I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don’t remember ever having seen one weep.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing—all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art—at the door.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.
—Robert Half
I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British-born American Film Director, Film Producer
The actors today really need the whip hand. They’re so lazy. They haven’t got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experience.
—Paul Newman (1925–2008) American Actor, Philanthropist
The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
—Daniel Day-Lewis (b.1957) English Actor
Compare the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist