On Acting Quotes

Acting is a sport. On stage you must be ready to move like a tennis player on his toes. Your concentration must be keen, your reflexes sharp; your body and mind are in top gear, the chase is on. Acting is energy. In the theatre people pay to see energy. ~ Clive Swift

I've spent a part of my life focused on acting, so if there was an opportunity that I'm right for and I feel confident, I would definitely go for it. ~ Jessie Pavelka

To establish yourself as an actress, you have to become well known. A girl just starting out, I would tell her to concentrate on acting, but she doesn't have to go around wearing blankets. ~ Jayne Mansfield

Maybe it wasn't exactly pain they felt when they saw her, but more a kind of fear, the kind of fear most women have. The fear that your peak attractiveness as a woman is behind you, and you either don't realize it or refuse to accept it, and go on acting the way you always have, and then people snub you and laugh at you behind your back. ~ Haruki Murakami

I carried on acting during school holidays and was all set to go to drama school when I was offered my first professional job appearing in 'King David' with Richard Gere. ~ Gina Bellman

There was an electric buzzing sound that was constantly on, acting as background music like a million cicadas in the forest. A constant white noise. ~ Missy Lyons

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result. ~ Robert Duvall

Everyone sort of feels alienated at that point, so it's hard to say whether I felt like that because everyone does or because I was so focused on acting [since the age of 8]. ~ Alycia Debnam Carey

I'll keep on acting 'til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven't lost my enthusiasm yet! ~ Robert Duvall

We teach our players, in response to any situation they face, to press pause and ask: What does this situation require of me?
Pressing pause gives you time to think. It gets you off autopilot and helps you gain clarity about the outcome you are pursuing, the situation you are experiencing, and the Above the Line action you need to take to achieve the outcome.
There are two important benefits of pressing pause:
A) It helps you avoid doing something foolish or harmful
B) It focuses you on acting with purpose to accomplish your goals
A productive pause could last only a split second, which helps you regain your focus and take control of your action. It could last an hour, a day, or longer. The purpose is to take the time necessary to be intentional about the way you think and act. Pressing pause does not come naturally; it is a skill that must be developed. The more you practice, the more skilled you become at being able to identify how and when to use it effectively. ~ Urban Meyer

On acting to daughter Isabella Rossellini: Keep it simple. Make a blank face and the music and the story will fill it in. ~ Ingrid Bergman

You remembered what I like," he murmured.
She slammed her glass down harder than she meant to. "Of course I do. The only thing predicable besides your outrageous libido is your stomach. You ordered the same thing each and every time we came here."
A ghost of a flirtatious smile played at Aidan's lips. "If I don't clean my plate, are you going to spank me, Mommy?"
Emma crossed her arms over her chest. "No, but I will force feed you myself like the damn petulant toddler you insist on acting like! ~ Katie Ashley

I'd just like to carry on acting. ~ Nicholas Hoult

He who goes on acting with energy has a (firm) will. ~ Lao-Tzu

I decided I was going to give up singing and concentrate on acting, and a result of that, I didn't do another film for two to three years, and I don't blame it on anybody but myself. ~ Bobby Darin

I think whatever you do, if you are going to do well or even if you don't do it well, you have to have a passion for it, and I am passionate about it. I love it. I respect it and it gets me. I get off on acting. ~ Jack Lemmon

I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn't going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting. ~ Ben Stiller

I feel like writing songs is cheating on acting. It's weird. ~ Ester Dean

He who knows other men is discerning;
he who knows himself is intelligent.
He who overcomes others is strong;
he who overcomes himself is mighty.
He who is satisfied with his lot is rich;
he who goes on acting with energy has a (firm) will.
He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long;
he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity. ~ Lao-Tzu

I haven't given up on acting, but I've gone away from it for a while to concentrate on myself and the fans of 'Star Wars.' ~ Daniel Logan

My sights have always been on acting, on the creative process, never the lifestyle. Growing up in Northern Ireland when I did, everything was against you if you wanted to do something like that. But I was determined. ~ Colin Morgan

My wife was an opera singer, you know. She bellowed her way through Wagner as a Valkyrie. I married her and made her give up the theatre, to my eternal cost. She was to go on acting for myself alone. A performance at his own expense, lasting for more than twenty years, tends to wear out your spectator. ~ Jean Anouilh

It was extremely useful to grow up in front of the camera. It gives the camera no significance. I think it helped me have perspective on things. The attraction that Hollywood can have, I feel like I'm over that. Instead I just concentrate on acting. ~ Giovanni Ribisi

So that's how we go on acting dramas in our theater of the mind even when we don't believe anymore in the audience or the director or the play. ~ Anne Rice

When I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just relieved for me that I had finally started to focus. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm a bug on acting, which distinguishes Second City from a lot of other revues. It comes from the character, the behavior, and not from the jokes. I don't think jokes are funny. Humor comes out of character and out of situations the character is in. ~ Bernard Sahlins

I never really wanted to write and wanted to focus on acting. ~ Abby Elliott

I always want to try new things, and 'Mean Machine' has given me that chance. I have got plans to carry on acting and would love to play all sorts of roles - you'll see that there's more strings to my bow! ~ Vinnie Jones

I'm definitely focusing all of my attention on acting. Modeling comes up by default, and I love it - of course I think that it's great - but I'm definitely focusing all of my attention on acting. ~ Jamie Clayton

I sang a lot in college - I was in a choral group in college. But, then, when I moved to New York, I really just concentrated on acting. ~ Callie Thorne

Putin must be punished for violating the Budapest Memorandum, and Russia must learn that the U.S. will isolate it if it insists on acting like a rogue nation. ~ Rand Paul

If you didn't want to know things, you didn't have to know them. Things didn't become facts until someone actually spoke them. Until then, you could just go on acting just the way you had been acting and even if you suspected there was something that would change everything, you didn't have to acknowledge it; you didn't have to let it in. ~ Corinne Demas

It is proper for every one to consider, in the case of all men, that he who has not been a servant cannot become a praiseworthy master; and it is meet that we should plume ourselves rather on acting the part of a servant properly than that of the master, first, towards the laws, (for in this way we are servants of the gods), and next, towards our elders. ~ Plato

I definitely want to go on acting for as long as I can find employment. I'm never happier than when I'm on a film set. I just want to keep working. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

I won't say I've closed the door on acting. ~ Glen Hansard

I've still got lots of writing in me. I have not left journalism, but I put it on hold to focus on acting. I love actors. I think it's a crazy thing to do with your life, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. ~ Liane Balaban

The pleasant surprise for me is that when I look into Tony's eyes, he's still 100% present, sharing everything that's going on. Acting with him is like a beautiful dance. ~ Genie Francis

Like the Bible, Stanislavsky's basic texts on acting can be quoted to any purpose. ~ Lee Strasberg

I had to keep on acting deaf if i wanted to hear at all. ~ Ken Kesey

When I work on a movie, I never aim for records, collections or the number one position. I always concentrate on my work and look for ways to improve my acting abilities. I also advise my co-stars not to concentrate on these pretty issues and just focus on acting. ~ Mahesh Babu

Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck ~ Eli Wallach

I generally don't involve myself in giving the actors some tips on acting. At the same time, I don't do that with the director. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I became disillusioned with dance when I was 16 and started focusing on acting. ~ Teri Polo

From eating at El Pollo Loco salsa bar to the Golden Globes buffet, I managed to stumble through this journey with the perseverance of an immigrant and the mindset of an American. I learned to thrive on being uncomfortable to pursue what I loved. The English language was uncomfortable, so I studied BET until it became my natural tongue. Doing stand-up was uncomfortable, so I hung out at the Comedy Palace until it became my second home. Auditions were uncomfortable, so I spent six hundred bucks a month on acting classes while I slept in some dude's living room for three hundred bucks until acting became my profession. I never looked at these challenges as barriers; I saw them as opportunities to grow. I'd rather try to pursue my dream knowing that I might fail miserably than to have never tried at all. That is How to American. ~ Jimmy O. Yang

Fashion is really interesting to me, but I'm not a professional model, so I'm focusing my career on acting. ~ Rinko Kikuchi

I wasn't dating anyone. I was hyper-focused on acting. So I didn't bring a guy to the prom. I was the lone gay person as far as I knew. ~ Randy Harrison

It's very different. You do so many things in this play. You can't just focus on acting or singing. You have to be good at both. I'm very glad I did this play. ~ Will Davis

I love acting. I think that's the best job in the world, but I don't really enjoy the career of it so much. You don't have as much control over your life or the material as you do, well, certainly when you're a director or a producer, so while I love acting, I prefer to make my living as a filmmaker, but my rule on acting is if somebody asks me to do a part, I'll do it. ~ David Hayter

And after you've done the acting, there's a lot of places you can put your input - in the editing, in the production of it, in the rewriting of it and so on. ~ Paul Reiser

In my twenties in San Francisco I became a sophisticate and an acting agnostic. It wasn't that I had stopped believing in God; it's just that God didn't seem to be around the neighborhoods I frequented. ~ Maya Angelou

The truth is, anybody that becomes famous is an ass for a year and a half. You've got to give them a year and a half, two years. They are getting so much smoke blown, and their whole world gets so turned upside down, their responses become distorted. I give everybody a year or two to pull it together because, when it first happens, I know how it is. ~ Bill Murray

What are you doing?"
"I'm, uh, acting normal."
"No you're not. You're acting like someone pretending to be normal. Stop pretending and start acting, but don't act like you're not pretending, that'll make it worse. ~ Derek Landy

After all, a district judge who gives harsh sentences to Yankees fans and lenient sentences to Red Sox fans would not be acting reasonably even if her procedural rulings were impeccable. ~ John Paul Stevens

At a young age, acting was so inspiring and exciting, because to me it was play - make-believe, pretend. ~ James Van Der Beek

keep me from ridin' trail. But you're acting ~ Zane Grey

I would be the worst acting coach ever, because I have no idea what I'm doing. ~ Aaron Douglas

Well, I love acting, and I love acting quick. ~ Ron Perlman

I really think of it - acting and writing and producing, whatever - as shipping. You gotta ship. Put the widget together in the easiest, quickest way possible and ship the product. ~ Rob Corddry

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick
you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family. ~ Noel Streatfeild

A moment of truth is very powerful. Instead of smiling to be polite, just frown. Instead of laughing when you are nervous or uncomfortable, just speak your truth. Instead of acting like everything is all right, proclaim it isn't alright, and talk about your feelings! Honor your truth. Honor yourself. Be real. ~ Bryant McGill

Speculation does not determine prices; it has to accept the prices that are determined in the market. I ts efforts are directed to correctly estimating future price-situations, and to acting accordingly. The influence of speculation cannot alter the average level of prices over a given period; what it can do is to diminish the gap between the highest and the lowest prices. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Acting is the most brotherly and sisterly profession in the world. ~ Cyril Cusack

You know, the great thing about acting or, indeed, filmmaking in general, is that we're all given a reason to do research. You kind of have to, really, if you want to know what you're doing, but it opens up this whole new understanding. ~ Danny Huston

I was home-schooled. But going to high school, I never would've been able to travel the U.S. or been able to do acting. ~ Ethan Embry

With the things that I love, I tried to put a couple seeds, a bunch of seeds in the ground and see what sprung up. Sometimes it was acting and sometimes it was music. But whatever it was I continued to plant. ~ Lauryn Hill

What the author of Genesis wants to tell us, I think, is that man, when united with God, is not divided. In this unity, there is no good and evil. All of our inclinations, even the sexual ones, are good when we are in Eden
that is, when we walk with God and all our actions, words, and thoughts seek to follow His will. But man can choose to be separate from God, and in this separateness he creates evil by imagining ways to use what is good in ways that hurt him or others, and then acting upon what he imagines. ~ Francisco X Stork

While great leaders may be as rare as great runners, great actors, or great painters, everyone has leadership potential, just as everyone has some ability at running, acting, and painting. ~ Warren G. Bennis

I always want to portray veterans in a positive light, and since I got into acting full time, I've made that part of my goal. ~ Jon Huertas

We don't settle for anything less than excellence. ~ Steve Jobs

I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am. ~ Judy Holliday

Acting is a youthful profession. ~ Kirk Douglas

Being mad at someone for acting exactly the way you assume they'll act is no one's fault but your own. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

I've been acting since I was six years old, but not professionally. ~ Jacqueline Emerson

I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. ~ Olivia Wilde

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting. ~ Armand Assante

There is nothing I feel that connected or passionate about that would take me away from acting. ~ Martin Henderson

I went to UCLA for a year and a quarter. There were too many students at UCLA interested in what I was interested in, and they couldn't accommodate all of us. I wasn't allowed to take voice or dance, only theater and acting. So I saved my money and, at 19, moved to New York. ~ Casey Nicholaw

Insiders say Obama's pretty comfortable around actors. He should be. He has been 'acting' like he was born in Hawaii for a long time. ~ Craig Ferguson

The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers. ~ Kevin Smith

The owner of Papa John's may not be the best pitchman, but he's the worst at acting. Papa John's commercials actually make me yearn for a Men's Wearhouse commercial. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Movie acting is a great job for your twenties: You travel all over, you have affairs with people, and you throw yourself into one part and then another. It gets more challenging as you get older, and it's not just having a daughter, it's wanting to have your own life and be yourself. ~ Helen Hunt

Anyone that has a music career and an acting career I think is pretty fantastic. ~ Brittany Murphy

Tom's Cabin, and she spent many hours acting out ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Everything I do and say tells a story of who I am serving. If I am acting out of anger and spite, I am serving the father of darkness and spreading his darkness. If I am honoring to the Lord with my actions, I am serving to further the name of Jesus and spreading His light. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

Acting is not just doing! It is who you are being and what you are experiencing that causes you to do - to need to act. Then doing turns arounds and changes your being. But doing without being is lifeless. ~ Jason Bennett

Acting is very much like a child making believe. I'm not one to become a character, but I fall in love with the character. It's like having faith; you're going to be that person for a while. ~ Lusia Strus

So I don't think I'm gonna pull my head into my shell just because a bunch of people start acting like idiots. ~ Todd Rundgren

I really like acting in English. ~ Romain Duris

In the court of reason man is always a claimant and God is always a respondent. The original intention of the reason for creation of God is to make Him as a respondent as and when the need arises. Hence when a man is in trouble his reason tries to save him by acting as an arbitrator; the reason sitting as sole judge asks the man for his claims and makes the God to respond. ~ Thiruman Archunan

These kids only want to talk about acting method and motivation. in my day all we talked about was screwing and overtime. ~ Robert Mitchum