Actors Quotes

For aspiring actors out there, I would say stay focused and don't let anyone pull you away from your goals. Shoot for the stars so that if you ever fall short you can land on the clouds.

As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.

It's very important to be able to distinguish the actors from the characters they play.

You are exposing yourself all the time as an actor. There's the risk of being thought of as bad or boring or unattractive.

A strange thing happens to me that I'm sure happens to a lot of actors when the camera starts rolling. I'm not 'me' any more.

I'm not one of those actors who romanticizes his trials working out and brags that he can bench press a panda now.

Shooting in 3D hasn't really affected the way I work as an actor that much. Maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe I'm not being diligent enough.

I studied acting for 10 years before I went for an audition. I studied with Lee Strasberg and Actors Studio teachers, and went to the High School of Performing Arts.

I choose movies, I never choose roles. I look at the script. I look at the director. I look at the other actors - and then the role.

I just happen to like the work. I like preparing for a role. I like reading. I like analyzing. I like literature. I like emotions. I like working with other actors.

I don't have a story about an epiphany in which I suddenly realised I wanted to be an actor. It was much more a case of the idea dawning on me gradually.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

I didn't go into this business to do action because I'm a classically trained actor. But I'm good at kicking and punching.

If you're lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

I'm more than an actor. I'm an icon, an industry.

Nobody became an actor because he had a good childhood.

Ninety percent of the preparation we do as actors is just jive. It doesn't do anything.

Actors are embracing a new aesthetic, which is leaning more toward truthful and simple and direct, as opposed to what we would normally call sitcom acting.

However good a communicator a director is, unless they've been actors, it's just not the same as the shorthand you get with someone who's been an actor.

I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

You're always dealing with emotions as an actor.

You have to trust your instincts. There is a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it.

People told me, when I was coming through the ranks, that a mark of a great actor is one who deals with the period of unemployment as well as they deal with the period of employment

It's often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.

Any actor who tells you that he makes choices, absolutely, is wrong. You find work and work finds you.

There's certainly something very uncomfortable about the voyeurism involved in being in the press, being an actor, where people have a seemingly insatiable curiosity about, you.

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

Actors' careers are random with a capital "R."

All the time, as an actor, you want to be asking what's next and where things are going. If you're not asking those questions, you're not growing.

Some movies I see today have the most dramatic plot points but the actors are not playing them dramatically.

I think there are advantages to different scales of filmmaking. You wouldn't want to do just one thing.

The most interesting persons are always those who have nothing special to do: children, nurses, policemen and actors at 11 o'clock in the morning.

You always have to make positive choices as an actor, even when you're playing someone who may not be doing the best things.

Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

I've always known I wanted to be an actor. It never crossed my mind to be anything else. I think I probably decided for sure when I saw 'Sounder'.

I just did something on a show on UPN called "Girlfriends" that will be on television in February. I am actually a much better actor today than I was in 1996, believe it or not.

There are 100,000 actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Only 2,000 of them make more than $75,000 a year.

They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true.

I'm happy being an actor, it's what I have always wanted to do. I'm just lucky I got to do it so early.

You can take wonderfully talented actors, wonderfully talented writers and producers, and, uh, do a wonderful show!... but if it doesn't hit with the public in two minutes, it's bye-bye.

I'm very used to working with first time actors - you can just look back at 'E.T.' with Drew Barrymore, and Christian Bale from 'Empire of the Sun,' who'd never made a movie before.

A real explosion is not only much more fun to shoot, it also helps the actors and creates an energy on set and ultimately in the scene.

I started working as an actor, semi-professionally, when I was 16, and got my first professional gig at 19. I guess I've kind of worked pretty consistently since then.

As an actor we're just like workers in a factory, we provide our services to directors.

An actor is only merchandise.

I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.

I'm not a comedian, I'm an actor.

From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.

The worst thing for an actor is a director that gets on your nerves and says things that actually confuse you.