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
Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.
—Robert Half
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
When an actor has money, he doesn’t send letters, but telegrams.
—Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian Short-Story Writer
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
It is not whether you really cry. It’s whether the audience thinks you are crying.
—Ingrid Bergman (1915–82) Swedish Actor
They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event.
—Roland Barthes (1915–80) French Writer, Critic, Teacher
The profession of the player, like that of the painter, is one of the imitative arts, whose means are pleasure, and whose end should be virtue.
—William Shenstone (1714–63) British Poet, Landscape Gardener
I have to act to live.
—Laurence Olivier (1907–89) English Actor, Producer, Director
The main factor in any form of creativeness is the life of a human spirit, that of the actor and his part, their joint feelings and subconscious creation.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
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
A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised.
—Roger Moore (1927–2017) English Actor
A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.
—Jane Fonda (b.1937) American Actress, Political Activist
When he ran from a cop his transitions from accelerating walk to easy jog trot to brisk canter to headlong gallop to flogged-piston sprint…were as distinct and as soberly in order as an automatic gearshift.
—James Agee (1909–55) American Journalist, Poet, Screenwriter, Film Critic
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
—Uta Hagen (1919–2004) German-American Actress
An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.
—Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American Film, Stage Actor
When [actors] are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.
—Cedric Hardwicke (1893–1964) English Stage, Film Actor
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.
—Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American Film, Stage Actor
Acting is the perfect idiot’s profession.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
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
If a person were to try stripping the disguises from actors while they play a scene upon stage, showing to the audience their real looks and the faces they were born with, would not such a one spoil the whole play ? And would not the spectators think he deserved to be driven out of the theatre with brickbats, as a drunken disturber ?.. Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage ? Moreover, this manager frequently bids the same actor to go back in a different costume, so that he who has but lately played the king in scarlet now acts the flunkey in patched clothes. Thus all things are presented by shadows.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
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, Screenwriter, Director
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
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
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
You don’t merely give over your creativity to making a film—you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night’s washing-up.
—Daniel Day-Lewis (b.1957) English Actor
Acting doesn’t bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
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
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
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 basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.
—Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British Actor
I’m not an actress who can create a character. I play me.
—Mary Tyler Moore (b.1936) American Actor, TV Personality
Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
An actor should take lessons from the painter and the sculptor. Not only should he make attitude his study, but he should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable him not only to understand his parts, but to communicate a nobler coloring to his manners and mien.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.
—Thomas Reid (1710–96) Scottish Philosopher, Clergyman
I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.
—Judy Garland (1922–69) American Actress, Singer
…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
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
Someplace along the line the audience discovered you. In my case it was playing the Gipper.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
We become actors without realizing it, and actors without wanting to.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
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
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
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
A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright