Best Acting Quotes

There's a large chunk of me in all the parts. As an actor, I got involved largely because I want to let things out. The best acting is that that is most real and the only way to do that, is to genuinely feel it. ~ James Franco

Somebody told me long ago that in acting, it's okay to steal, just steal from the best. ~ Nathan Fillion

The best acting is instinctive. It's not intellectual, it's not mechanical, it's instinctive. ~ Craig MacDonald

Groucho Marx, in his later days, gave me the best review I've ever had and probably will ever have. I changed a light bulb over his bed, and when I came off of his bed with the used one after putting the new one in, Groucho said, 'That's the best acting I've ever seen you do.' ~ Elliott Gould

I'm not at my best when I'm not working - I'm certainly not at my happiest. Acting will always be my first love. ~ Johnny Galecki

To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves. ~ James Dean

When people see me in something and say, 'That's just you - that's not acting,' it's the best compliment I can get. ~ James Garner

I didn't go to acting school, but I've been observing my fellow man for 66 years now, and I would think that's the best school there is. ~ Wilford Brimley

The Marine Corps is some of the best acting training you could have. Having that responsibility for people's lives, suddenly time becomes a really valuable commodity and you want to make the most of it. And for acting, you just have to do the work, just keep doing it. ~ Adam Driver

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

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

Acting feels different. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it used to mean a lot more. Maybe that sounds like I'm throwing it away and I'm not, I'll still do the best damn job I can, but it doesn't mean the same thing. I'm going to get the answer for myself one of these days. It's the male menopause, that's what it is. ~ Mel Gibson

It's bad writing, however naturalistic it's written, that's where you have to do your best acting. ~ Adam Brody

Once, Naseeruddin Shah told me that the wafer shop was the best acting school that I could have attended. And I completely agree. I observed every customer very minutely and picked up some quirk or the other. Later, I used those experiences while playing different characters. ~ Boman Irani

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying. ~ Johnny Depp

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence. ~ Carrie Fisher

We made one film called Thy Neighbor's Wife in which I got flogged at the public whipping post for adultery. I did my best acting in that film, I guess. ~ Cleo Moore

Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set. ~ Christian Bale

When I audition, I understand what it takes and the insecurities that come with it. If I do anything, I put actors at ease. I used to tell directors who weren't actors, the best thing they could do was take an acting class for a couple of months. Just to understand. ~ Albert Brooks

Speaking of Oscars, I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy. ~ Marilyn Monroe

An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. ~ Sanford Meisner

It's hard to talk about acting because I don't think it's quite as explicit as a lot of people might think. And that's probably the best thing about it. ~ Paul Dano

It's best to keep acting real. ~ Liam Neeson

I was a student of Stella Adler and then later Lee Strasberg, and they were into sensory work. At its best, acting is not about words - even when the words are important. ~ Mark Margolis

Find in yourself those human things which are universal. ~ Sanford Meisner

Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there. ~ Meryl Streep

I thought I'd be a journalist, and only pursued acting intermittently while studying. My very first interview as a journalist was with David Usher of Moist, and he called the magazine the next day to say it was the best interview he'd done for his solo album. I felt like a million euros. ~ Liane Balaban

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets. ~ Ellen Barkin

The greatest inspiration I draw upon is, is this city (New York) and riding the subway and watching people and I find that's kind of like the best, the best acting teacher. You know, I wonder, like people who have huge celebrity, sometimes I feel bad, should this be one of their methods 'cause I don't know how they can observe life anymore, because they become the observed. So, I, I appreciate that New York can still do that. ~ Amy Ryan

An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego. ~ Alec Guinness

I think the best acting is when you allow yourself to be kind of vulnerable in the moment. ~ Michael Sheen

The best acting happens when you're not acting. You have to believe what's happening, feel it - even if it's just for a little while. So I'm going to run a club, the best damn club I can, and whatever comes of that is - ~ Kit Rocha

The enemy of creativity ... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up. ~ Seth Godin

I think acting is something that came natural. ~ Rene Russo

I want to do acting as much as I can. When you're on contract with a show, you can't really do other shows. It's hard to do film. I haven't had the opportunity to even audition much for films because I don't have an agent. ~ Retta

My parents' divorce left me with a lot of sadness and pain and acting, and especially humour, was my way of dealing with all that. ~ Jennifer Aniston

Even when you're acting, you still need to be true to yourself because you don't want to put on a show for the rest of your life. It is a hard way to the top, but it is also very easy to come back down as well. Also, it is really important to keep yourself rested, and whenever you need a break, take a break. ~ Miley Cyrus

The important thing is to learn through experience.
The more you do the more you learn. I don't think
anyone can teach acting from a podium. ~ Rex Harrison

I knew one person in the entire city of New York. Looking back, I should have been terrified, but I was just excited to living in New York on my own and acting professionally. ~ Rachel Boston

I love improv-ing, you know, from very early on when I started acting the school that I went to and everything was very big on ad-libbing and improv-ing and messing things up, so I feel very comfortable doing stuff like that. ~ Jennifer Lopez

Whether it be in acting, music, or even in dancing, I only want to do things that I truly connect to, and with my music, it's everything that I am. ~ Keke Palmer

I did community theater and kids programs at professional theaters and plays at school and voice lessons for seven years. I stopped because it was so time-consuming. But then I realized that I had access to this world where I could go on auditions. And there wasn't too much of an identity crisis when I started acting professionally because I had been acting longer than I had been writing. It didn't feel new. ~ Tavi Gevinson

Jazz music and, more specifically, jazz musicians, are my artistic heroes. I want to be the Thelonious Monk of acting. He had no concern for how well he was received. He played whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He just wasn't interested in achieving the good opinion of his audience. That's the Holy Grail of acting; of any art form. ~ Trevor St. John

Practice is everything ~ Periander

Any show that breaks the monotony works. If the end product is good, nothing can stop it from being successful. ~ Kunal Karan Kapoor

None of them even know who they are. They're just acting out their roles. Being what their parents made them. Always trying to be what's expected. It's exhausting. ~ Marie Sexton

I'd trained at the University of Washington and had a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting. ~ Gregg Henry

As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays. ~ Matisyahu

The inner life of the [imagination], and not the personal and tiny experiential resources of the actor, should be elaborated on the stage and shown to the audience. This life is rich and revealing for the audience as well as for the actor himself. ~ Michael Chekhov

My first inspiration for acting came from the first episode of 'Hannah Montana.' That's when I knew I wanted to be a singer and an actress. ~ Sabrina Carpenter

It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinee in Hull - it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction. Come to think of it, I never did play to a good matinee in Hull ... ~ Noel Coward

Are you close to your family?'
I considered it. 'Close' was one way of putting it. 'We're close,' I said cautiously. 'But we're very mean to each other. This morning I told my mum that if she didn't stop acting old I was going to lobby for a law on euthanasia, so a bus would come round every Monday morning and take away all the old people who complained that they couldn't hear the telly or see the buttons on their mobile phone or that they had a pain in their hip, and put a bullet in their heads. But we're close. ~ Marian Keyes

don't sulk. you're acting just like a man. ~ Janet Fitch

In acting, you have a writer, a director, a character - you're working through being another person - and the irony I always tell people is when I acted early on as a teenager, it actually kept me out of trouble. ~ Juliette Lewis

I went to college for one semester, and I took every subject I could, and I ended up failing. So I thought to myself, Ever since I was a kid, I've loved expression - and that's when I started thinking about acting. ~ Derek Luke

When you're acting you always want to come across as if you're not acting. For me, my take is always to have it feel like you're watching someone on film and that comes with a lot of preparation time. ~ Vince Vaughn

My feelings were big, sad, comfortless, of a thinking animal, my heart acting like an orb filled too big for my chest, not from revulsion, which I have to say I didn't feel, but over-all general misery. ~ Saul Bellow

I don't know whether there is a God but there sure is someone acting out of spite ~ Abraham Sutzkever

in time-out. That's how you're acting - like five-year-olds. It's time you realized that you are sixteen and way too old for this nonsense. And you ~ Holly Jacobs

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

I remember the first reading of the script we had and everybody was sitting around the table. I was very impressed with the level of acting that was in the room, particularly with Jennifer who has so much responsibility. ~ Victor Garber

You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older. ~ Lillian Gish