Quotes on Acting

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.

Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying your moral is not the same as acting morally.

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

The key to getting a reputation for being brilliant is actually being brilliant, not just acting like you are.

Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.

The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.

The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting

The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty and being comfortable being uncomfortable.

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak.Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don't think most people realise for an actor. It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you're acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like sort of a chunk of you.

I've often stood silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and little people.

I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

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.

Relationships, easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie! ‘Cause you can’t get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can’t get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative!

Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.

Acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion.