Explore Quotes on Acting

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

Acting is an everlasting search for truth.

Bad acting, like bad writing, has a remarkable uniformity, whether seen on the French, German, or English stages; it all seems modeled after two or three types, and those the least like types of good acting. The fault generally lies less in the bad imitation of a good model, than in the successful imitation of a bad model.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.

What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.

Never get caught acting.

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be. You can't be eight times a week without going stark staring mad. You've got to be in control.

Acting, in general, is something most people think they're incapable of, but they do it from morning to night. The subtlest acting I've ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don't, or trying to hide something. It's something everyone learns at an early age.

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting.

Acting is experience with something sweet behind it.

One mustn't allow acting to be like stoc kbroker - you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement.

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you-trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

I would like to be going all over the kingdom...and acting everywhere. There's nothing in the world equal to seeing the house rise at you, one sea of delightful faces, one hurrah of applause!

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be.

The difference between acting badly or brilliantly is not based on your ability, but on the state of your mind and/or body in any given moment.

When it's working, what acting is really about is getting into the essence of a moment in a creative, joyous way - through whatever frees you up.

Tears and fears and feeling proud_x000D__x000D_To say I love you, right out loud_x000D__x000D_Dreams and schemes and circus crowds_x000D__x000D_I've looked at life that way._x000D__x000D_But now old friends are acting strange_x000D__x000D_They shake their heads, they say I've changed_x000D__x000D_Something's lost, but something's gained_x000D__x000D_In living every day_x000D__x000D_I've looked at life from both sides now_x000D__x000D_From win and lose, and still somehow_x000D__x000D_It's life's illusions I recall_x000D__x000D_I really don't know life at all

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

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

Acting on stage is still my favorite thing to do. And everyone who's been in musicals knows that there is nothing more fun.