Quotes on Acting

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.

I'd started going to acting classes at 14, played 'Medea' at 15 and really wanted to be a classical actress.

To be a movie star, you have to invent yourself.

No matter what the reason, if you start to scream and shout, you look a fool, and you feel a fool, and you earn the disrespect of everyone.

I've always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, 'Hi,' that the people ought to get their money's worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he's playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity - he came not from - as he said - not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played.

When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that.

No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold some-thing or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our thoughts.

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination ...is an unfortunate reality...and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.

Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

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!

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you.

Everyone is interesting. Everyone has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.

I need to go where people are serious about acting.

Discontent is the first necessity of progress.

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.

With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.

But then acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with.