Acting Quotations | Page 10

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

I grew up around horses, but acting and riding on camera is a whole different thing.

That's what I love about acting, you get to find little pieces of yourself in every character you play.

Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking.

There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.

In acting, I always try to go back to what would actually be the real situation, the real human behavior in life.

I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity.

If I ever feel that acting is just soul-sucking and I don't want to do it anymore, I could stop.

Acting isn't a side thing - you have to live and breathe it.

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.

I'm too busy acting like I'm not Naive. I've seen it all, I was here first.

I'm 64 years old, and I've been acting now for 42 years. Only recently have I thought to myself, 'Hmmm, it may be interesting to start directing.'

Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.

In a work capacity I'm only interested in acting and producing

Around 2001, I started analyzing lesbians. I started to realize that even really butch-acting or -dressing women still had a strong female identity that I never had.

I wanted to give my actor a break. I wanted to live and to learn English. I wanted to be anything, a cabdriver, a busboy, anything to keep me away from acting for a while.

People used to ask me questions on my blog about how to break into the acting industry. You often have to start out in parts where you have very few words, but you still have to try to make an impact.

I've made great friends through acting. When I'm with Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, we have grand fun. We can make each other howl with laughter because we know each other so well.

Just because we're on schedule is no reason to shoot bad acting. Someone once said to me, 'You're inconsiderate.' And I said, 'Inconsiderate? Bad acting is the ultimate inconsideration.' It's a collective slap to a million faces at the same time.

Where I teach students in drama school, there's a course called Dramatics. In this course, all students must put on a play. However, acting majors are not supposed to act. They can write the play, for example, and the writers may work on stage art. Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way you put on a show.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed playing crime branch officer Gautam Savant, it drained a lot out of me, too. It shook my faith in myself, as I explored my hidden side and wondered if I was just acting or using the character as an excuse to vent my mean side.

I've been blessed to have acting opportunities in movies, television, as well as Broadway, and definitely want to continue to do so.

Yeah, I've only been acting since I was 18 out of high school.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

If my mum thinks I'm acting like a diva she'll soon tell me off... She'll cut me down to size!

After the brain tumor happened, I realized I love acting, I've always loved it, I may never get a chance to do it again.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, I sort of fell into acting.

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

Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way.

Acting is a life experience. I'm always learning things when I'm making a movie. So the fame part of it is fine when you consider what you get out of this job.

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.

Acting's not about nose jobs and liposuction. It's about being truthful to what you're doing.

I never achieved my first goal in the National Actors Theatre, which is to have a permanent Acting Company

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.

Anthony Hopkins says you just keep acting. Do it all the time and eventually it will happen. He got his break, after all, by taking a role nobody else wanted. A cannibal!

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

You know, be an actor because you love to act. Don't be an actor because you think you're going to get famous, because that's luck.

More than anything, acting helped me discover who I'm not. I've learned that I'm a girly girl, but not a prissy girl.

I'd started acting as a child. But I wanted to see if it was something my true personality was interested in. I stepped away from offers when I took five years off to go to college. I've only really just decided to whole-heartedly embrace acting.

The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.

Someone will always hate what I say. There’s always going to be somebody spitting blood about my wooden-faced, toffee-named, crappy acting.

If I do a film and have to get naked, that tends to dictate how often I go to the gym. Acting in 'Richard II' on stage was a huge physical workout, so I ended up more toned than I normally am.

I did a year at Leeds, studying English. They basically threw me out, because I was taking too much time off to act. So I transferred to the Open University, because I could do it all online. By that point, I had admitted to myself that I had the acting bug.

I always felt like I needed to act. Not that I wanted to act, but I needed to. And I still feel that same way. There's an expression that I get to have in acting that I can't consciously express in my life. It has always defined me and it always will.

Well, acting was just in me and I tried to avoid it. I didn't want to do what my parents did, you know?

I don't like acting things; I like feeling things.

If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.

Acting makes you look at life and try to understand it in a beautiful way.

We didn't have a television, so I grew up with books. This isn't to suggest I'm an intellectual, but I do read a lot because part of acting is an exploration of literature.

You bring out a lot of your own thoughts and attitudes when acting. I think a great deal of it has to do with the inner you.

It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.

Acting by yourself is pretty darn hard, especially having to do physical comedy.

Acting is just common sense. It isn't hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.

I don't really look for specific types of projects any more. I'm not taking care of a career anymore. I'm just having fun acting.

Whenever you have dynamic interactions between 300 million people and the American economy acting in really complex ways, that introduces a degree of almost chaos theory to the system, in a literal sense.

I definitely have a tendency to only see the blemishes of things, and see lots of things about my acting that I don't like.

If it seems like you're doing work when you're acting, then you're doing something wrong.

I'm surrounded by friends and family who are not that impressed by celebrity. They don't have any problem telling me I'm acting like an idiot or I'm not that funny.

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.

I got into acting to get my foot in the door for film-making.

If I do a scene with an actor who doesn't have much experience, I say, 'I tell you what we're going to do: You just listen to me, and then you respond. We don't have to do any acting.' And that's good advice because you shouldn't see the acting.

I really enjoy singing and I really enjoy acting, but singing I've been doing since I was really young.

Acting is really about showing up that day and telling the writers what you feel like saying.

Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.

When I came out to L. A., I got a part in an episode of 'Star Trek: Voyager,' and I hired an acting coach.

When I was a kid, I always thought that acting was going to be the way to go.

I never wanted to lose out on an acting job and wonder if I hadn't been trained enough.

I took an acting class with Louise Lasser, Woody Allen's first wife and co-star in many movies. I've done some other indie films, if you look on the YouTube. I love acting - it's great.

I loved teaching. And I always used to say that acting was just something I did purely on my own terms, and that if I had to make a living from it there would be too much pressure.

What's been nice is that I've been able to direct from a very idealistic place. I've never had to make my living as a director, which gave me a chance to choose material I feel passionate about. The directing allows me to not have to grab any acting role that comes along. I can pick and choose a little bit.

I'm involved in some action scenes, so they'll train me for that. I'll be working with my acting coach to prepare for my character.

Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.

Watching Bernadette Peters perform is like an acting class. She's amazing.

Acting is not about anything romantic, not even fantasy, although you do create fantasy.

For acting, if there's a strong female role and there is that action element, for me that just feels really natural.

I found my interest lapse in both acting and racing.

I'm just some commoner trying to work in acting.

I'm not interested in becoming a bigger star, I'm not interested in being the wealthiest guy in the world. I'm doing fine, I love acting, and I want to do it for the rest of my life.

My history teacher was utterly terrifying, but her lessons were very inspiring. She got me interested in people and stories, which then led me to acting.

I've only half-admitted I'm a professional. I know I am, I've paid my dues, but one of the things I could do better when I'm acting is to really be rigorous and to think I know how to do it. To use my brain.

What made me fall in love with acting, which is my life, was watching other people perform. It made me hunger to do that.

It's great to have an acting job in the age of Reality TV.

It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting.

I'd prefer to go under the radar and just do the acting without being famous for it.

I stopped acting because I had other passions I wanted to pursue.

I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along.

For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

I never went to school. I never went to acting school because I was so scared.

Acting to me is real life - I don't act.

I can't even tell anyone how it feels when I'm acting, I don't mean to say that I don't have to try. But there's something in my heart that explodes, and I feel like I understand. When I'm acting, I feel like so in control and so centered. This is something that I solely get from acting and music. It's like love itself.

I do focus my energy on music, but it's just the way that the industry works. I kind of have to take what I can get when it comes to acting and show up so they'll hire me. And music I get to do when I have time. It's not that I focus less, it's just the way it works.

I was studying communications and acting, and I decided over the summer that I wanted to work on my acting skills and perform in a pageant. I didn't have any other way of practicing, so I entered the Miss Rhode Island pageant. I ended up wearing a dress that was a $20 rental. It was too short, and there was a hole in the back of it.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

Even on the worst days I am without a doubt still happier doing this than I am doing anything else. On acting.

It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to... In L.A., I'm just another character actor

My dad was always taking photos of us at home, and even on set - he'd bring us along and stick us in the photos in the background. It was almost the beginning of acting for me, like, 'Hey, you go over there and play basketball in the background, and don't even think about the camera.'

Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach.

I'd like to get more bit-acting roles. I don't know if my talent would allow for a long dialogue, but I could definitely knock out three lines.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.