Acting And Theatre Quotes

The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting - 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors. ~ Nicolas Roeg

I don't approach my acting as just saying a few lines and then going off-screen. It's a craft. I really invest in trying to make it a craft. ~ Aneurin Barnard

I do enjoy history. That's one of the things that I love about acting is you get a chance to really dive into history and develop a real personal opinion about it. ~ Andre Holland

Into no other city does the sight of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, you descend stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane: - and behold! you are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects. You turn a corner, and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills. You look down an alley, and see ships tacking for the Baltic. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I mean, there's chemistry in life and there's acting chemistry. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but they're as mysterious. ~ David Duchovny

[The paparazzi] were outside the theatre every single night, but we came up with a cunning ruse. I would wear the same outfit every time - a different T-shirt underneath, but I'd wear the same jacket and zip it up so they couldn't see what I was wearing underneath, and the same hat. So they could take pictures for six months, but it would look like the same day, so they became unpublishable. Which was hilarious, because there's nothing better than seeing paparazzi getting really frustrated. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

I think in the acting world you either manage that transition to older roles, or you stick with what you've always done and then discover nobody can bear you doing it as an older person. ~ Felicity Kendal

The deaf community is in a favorable position because they have a national theatre and training groups of their own to get them started. Deaf actors have often acquired very valuable skills and experience before they get their break. ~ Richard Masur

Gods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves.
God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate. ~ Joanne Harris

That's the recoil of the same urge. The anarchist, the criminal, the murderer, he is only the extreme lover acting on the recoil. But it is love: only in recoil. It flies back, the love-urge, and becomes a horror. ~ D.H. Lawrence

He turned the haggered, haunted face on her and said, "I want you to stop it."
"Whatever you're doing ... to try to make me like Pilar, it has to stop. Because it's not fair to her. She's upset right now because I'm acting crazy. But I don't want to be with her. It's you I love. And if you want to get rid of me, then tell me, but don't try to foist me off on somebody else. ~ L.J.Smith

Theatre's great. It's such an act of faith. It's a wonderful art form where you suspend disbelief for a couple of hours. It's a lovely art form because the actors and the audience are alive and in the room at the same time together. That's why I love the theatre. ~ Israel Horovitz

Of late she'd become impatient with the inexplicit needs of boys and men and their acting so rashly on what they could not fathom and surely could not articulate.
- Coal Black Horse Chapter 1 ~ Robert Olmstead

If children conform to the standards set by their peers, in the seventies and eighties the peer pressure for black children to keep with their own was intense. Before desegregation, "acting white" was a phrase no one had ever heard with regard to school involvement or academics. Yet in the wake of busing, it rose to become one of the most hurtful insults one black student could level at another. Talking white, dressing white, being enthusiastic about anything "white" was forsaking one's own. For the thirty-eight black students at Vestavia, there was the black cafeteria table and there were the other cafeteria tables, and it was one or the other. There was no going back and forth. ~ Tanner Colby

Ironically, when I hit adolescence, I was approached about modeling and acting all the time. And, for five years, I said, "No, I'm not interested. I want a simple life, I don't want to be in the spotlight." ~ Evangeline Lilly

I wanted to act; that was my one goal. I wanted to devote all my time to acting and not waitressing or anything else. ~ Edie Falco

I agree with Miss Erstwhile, you are acting like a scarecrow. I do not know why you put on this act, Nobley, when around the port table or out in the field you're rather a pleasant fellow."
"Really? That is curious," Jane said. "Why, Mr. Nobley, are you generous in your attentions with gentlemen and yet taciturn and withdrawn around the fairer sex?"
Mr. Nobley's eyes were back on the printed page, though they didn't scan the lines. "Perhaps I do not possess the type of conversation that would interest a lady."
"You say 'perhaps' as though you do not believe it yourself. What else might be the reason, sir?" Jane smiled. Needling Mr. Nobley was feeling like a very productive use of the evening.
"Perhaps another reason might be that I myself do not find the conversation of ladies to be very stimulating." His eyes were dark.
"Hm, I just can't imagine why you're still unmarried."
"I might say the same for you."
"Mr. Nobley!" cried Aunt Saffronia.
"No, it's all right, Aunt," Jane said. "I asked for it. And I don't even mind answering." She put a hand on her hip and faced him. "One reason why I am unmarried is because there aren't enough men with guts to put away their little boy fears and commit their love and stick it out."
"And perhaps the men do not stick it out for a reason."
"And what reason might that be?"
"The reason is women." He slammed his book shut. "Women make life impossible until the man has to be the one to end i ~ Shannon Hale

I'm into parlor dramas. I'm into theatre. I'm trained for the stage. I trained to do Chekhov and Shakespeare, I was trained for the stage. ~ Tom Hardy

One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting. ~ Maggie Smith

I can't do modeling disconnected. And I thought, "What do I like? What do I love about modeling?" And what I love is that it's such a creative process, with a bunch of people, and I wanted that more, which is how the acting thing came about. ~ Agyness Deyn

I've always loved comedy and growing up it was the comedies that I really responded to. So I don't know how it turned out that once I started acting that I started getting a certain kind of role, that I never saw myself as growing up, so I really love when I get an opportunity to play a [comedian] role. ~ Steve Buscemi

Nothing much bothered you for a while and you kept walking like a silhouette through this town, saying hi's and goodbyes, acting polite at all times. But there is no fire in your heart; you are not very concerned. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Acting is the best job in the world. Look at the way they treat you when you turn up for work. They give you breakfast and a cup of tea and ask, 'Are you all right' They tart up your face, you say somebody else's words, then pick up your check and go home. And you get days off. I tell you, it really is the way to live. ~ Bob Hoskins

When I fought Montell Griffin, he quit on me, on the floor, I hit him with a soft punch and he laid down like I knocked him out, and it kinda upset me. I told him I don't care what it is, just give me the rematch. And then I really had to teach him the difference between acting like you've been knocked out, and getting hit for real. ~ Roy Jones Jr.

I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who had dark hair, and she and I were representing the Italians. And I thought: Is that what an Italian looked like? ~ Al Pacino

Only do acting, if you don't want to do anything else. And know that it's a tough journey with a lot of rejection along the way. You have to have a lot of self-belief. ~ Naomie Harris

I realize that sometimes I get bothered when I see the world acting like the world. Did you hear what I said? The world is supposed to act like the world, and God tells us that every generation gets more wicked, so why the surprise? Maybe we have some word to swallow ourselves. ~ Monica Johnson

I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely, or actually barely, how much work it is to be a teacher. It's an incredible amount of work. ~ Nathan Fillion

I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be admitted, of passing the buck.) It is a way of bidding time to stop. ~ Iris Murdoch

So I was determined to use my last two years in college doing something I thought I would enjoy, which was acting. And it was probably because there was girls over in the drama school too, you know? ~ James Earl Jones

The price of apparent happiness and enjoyment is the neglect of the spontaneous active energies of the acting members. ~ Wilhelm Von Humboldt

I meditate. Like probably a lot of people, my mind was opened almost ten years ago with The Secret. From there, I devoured anything Wayne Dyer ever wrote. I listen to him constantly in my car. And Eckhart Tolle. And Paramahansa Yogananda. All this has helped me through the ups and downs of acting and kept me on my path. ~ Graham Shiels

She raised herself up on her elbow and jerked her chin at his stiff arms and motionless body. "You're acting like you've never been in bed with a female before."
This time only one eyebrow went up and his lip twitched like he was trying to hide a smile. "Is that how you'd like me to relax? ~ P.C. Cast

There's definitely a fascination with crime stories and stories of characters acting out against authority. ~ Joel Edgerton

If Bailey had been born without MD, he wouldn't be Bailey. The Bailey who is smart and sensitive, and seems to understand so many things we don't. You might have looked right past Bailey if he'd grown up healthy, wrestling on his dad's team, acting like every other guy you've ever known. A big part of the reason Bailey is so special is because life has sculpted him into something amazing ... maybe not on the outside, but on the inside. On the inside, Bailey looks like Michelangelo's David. And when I look at him, and when you look at him, that's what we see. ~ Amy Harmon

I went to the University/Resident Theatre Association auditions. Deans come and watch you in this theater. You have three minutes, and you have to do two contrasting monologues - at that time, this is 2003 - one classical and one contemporary. ~ Kunal Nayyar

I am not an actor. Yes, every so often I appear on talk shows to promote something I've written, and I enjoy doing so because I have a lot of stories to tell, and I like making audiences laugh. But that's not acting. That's just me being me. ~ Alan Zweibel

That means laying out a vision of the world that competes directly with the one on harrowing display at the Heartland conference and in so many other parts of our culture, one that resonates with the majority of people on the planet because it is true: That we are not apart from nature but of it. That acting collectively for a greater good is not suspect, and that such common projects of mutual aid are responsible for our species' greatest accomplishments. That greed must be disciplined and tempered by both rule and example. That poverty amidst plenty is unconscionable. ~ Naomi Klein

My singing led into acting, and that is how I discovered acting. ~ Lalaine

I took to writing as my medicine to help me stay afloat in acting career journey. I wrote about me breaking hearts, and my heart being broken. I wrote about my views whether they were liberal or conservative. I wrote about everything. I wrote about my life. When I did not have paper coming in as green backs, I'd use random pieces of paper for stories. It was like, I got no money, but I have paper to write. So I wrote. ~ Omari Hardwick

Mr. Orage, one of the most active and intelligent reformers for the last generation in England, attempted this very thing. He, in his little intellectual review which was supported by so brilliant a group of writers for so many years, published week after week the ingredients of the English patent medicines and the cost of those ingredients. Not a single one of the newspapers followed suit, or dared publish so much as the fact that Orage was thus acting courageously in his own limited sphere for the public good. ~ Hilaire Belloc

Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion. ~ Albert Einstein