Actor Quotes

If I didn't get a job, between 16 and 18, that wasn't significant, I was just going to go to college. I didn't want to be a struggling actor at 36 with five kids, doing something I hated. You see the story so much. It's such a vicious business to be in when you're not meant to be in it.

You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

I always wanted to be a great actor.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I'd love that. But I don't need to be. I just want to be here. That's it.

I'm an actor who believes we all have triggers to any stage of emotion. It's not always easy to find but it's still there.

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects.

My nomadic childhood dramatically fed my eventual decision to be an actor, but not in the way you might think.

I know what my limitations are as an actor, but my strength is putting myself into a well-written part. When I get in trouble is when I have to fix it, or when I have to carry it on personality.

I've always lived out of a suitcase. I was in a new city every three months. When I was a model, I traveled the world, and as an actor you're traveling from movie set to movie set. So I've never been in one place long enough for anything super-bad to happen.

I'm a character actor at heart.

To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.

When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a sickness.

I'm really a director's actor. I rely heavily on a director.

An actor remembers his first piece of published praise. It is written on his heart.

I was never a part of the Actor's Studio, because two friends of mine started it in 1947 and by that time I'd gone to California.

It was one of the great chances in my life to become a Dumont actor.

I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.

As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication.

Actors are programmed to see the worst. If you're talking about an actor's TV series, you say, 'I loved you last night.' And they go, 'What about the week before?' They immediately worry.

Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life.

I think every young actor in Los Angeles went up for that role. It was between Frankie Muniz and me, and he pulled out, so I got the role.

I think I can work with any type of actor.

I think I did have fantasies about being an actor. In fact, I know I did.

Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me.

I love to sing and I do think that my strength as a singer is... I think I have a voice that is certainly sufficient under most any circumstances... but I think my strength is that I really am an actor and I really do have to own what I am saying.

Being a good actor isn't easy. Being a man is even harder. I want to be both before I'm done.

It's a lot easier, I think, to be an actor in a movie than to spin a joke on a sitcom.

One of the fun things as an actor is to find a character that if you were to look up a rap sheet about them, you might say, 'I don't really necessarily want to hang out with this guy' or 'I would never be this kind of guy in my life.' I think it's part of an actor's job to say, 'Maybe you could be.'

I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor.