Acting Quotes

I don't think I have one iota of cynicism about acting.

One good thing about acting in film is that it's good therapy.

I was never challenged when it came to acting as a youngster. I sort of just did whatever was given to me without asking questions. I didn't really understand why I enjoyed it or why I did it.

To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting.

If laws acting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should be confined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to the legislatures of the States.

When it comes to the acting stuff, I like to show up for a couple days and kind of be outrageous and silly, and go back to my day job.

Acting is like lying. The art of lying well. I'm paid to tell elaborate lies.

Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

I think a lot of people, if they get the opportunity to do some acting, they think, 'I might be a star.'

I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying.

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.

By the time I could have played football, I was already into acting and that's what I wanted to do.

I love the stage, I love the process of acting in theatre, but unfortunately, it doesn't pay the bills.

Acting means living, it's all I do and all I'm good at. If I weren't getting paid well, I would still be acting in a small troupe somewhere.

Acting is such a personal thing, which is weird because at the same time it's not. It's for the consumption of other people. But in terms of creative outlets and expressing yourself, it's just the most extreme version of that that I've ever found.

Acting is a great way to make a living, especially when I consider what my alternatives were and probably still are. I mean, you are only making movies. It is a lot less pressure than being a surgeon; although it seemed like the only other thing that I was qualified for was manual labour.

Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.

Usually in a battle sequence when a bomb is going off, you forget you're acting.

I don't want to give up acting - it's what I am.

The acting was first. As a teenager I was an actress; and then I came back as a singer.

I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet.

Playing Karen was so satisfying that it almost cured my acting bug completely. Not that I had conquered the world of acting. It was just that I had something to prove to myself when I started Will & Grace. Now I feel like, okay, well, I've satisfied that.

Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.

Acting is really not what I'm interested in. I'm not an aspiring actor and you should be able to tell.

There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.

I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.

Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.

One of the nice things about acting is that it allows you to open up to the other people within you.

When I was younger and studying acting, I never ever saw myself in the sitcom world; it was drama that really turned me on and still does.