Actor Quotes

If you're a kid who's not necessarily attractive, and you don't have money, and you're not hip and cool, chances are you're not going to feel good about yourself and want to be an actor.

Watching a good actor is the best way to learn.

On set I keep myself to myself; I'd rather the director speak up. I'm not gonna direct a younger actor. I think the power of example works best, actually.

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them.

I am an actor through and through.

I'm an actor first and foremost; it's my first love and passion.

I'm not going to say, I'm an actor and I'm changing the world. Who cares?

For an actor to have a role that they're recognized and remembered for over the years, it's unusual. It's very lucky if it happens once - and it's luck that it's happened to me a couple of times.

I wasn't like a Hollywood child actor - 'I'm five! I can sing, I can dance, I can act! I wanna be a star!'

Today's films are so technological that an actor becomes starved for roles that deal with human relationships.

But you really - I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal. You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes - it's all about capturing the moment - in the moment, you know.

I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right.

I'm an actor, coming from New York theater.

When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way.

I had a feeling about Shakespeare's soliloquies, that there should be a real exchange between the actor and the audience.

If it's something that reaches out and grabs me, I want to do it. I have a lot of trouble doing things that don't grab me. So, I'm not a very good actor in that way. I can't fake it.

I was always a singer. But I was always focused on being an actor as my trade. Music I do just for me. The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible.

There are some actor secrets you keep sometimes, and you want to keep.

Whatever you do, make sure you want to write more than you want to be a writer. Make sure you want to act more than you want to be an actor. That is what will sustain you.

I shoot people in a way that makes the audience feel equal to them. And it's hard to express and it's hard to execute but I think it works on every level - the choice of the material the choice of the actor, my relationship with the actor, and so on.

It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.

The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.

Well, an actor is an actor is actor, to paraphrase someone or other and the opportunity to work, to have a steady engagement, certainly seemed like an appealing concept to me.

I think that Mos Def is the best actor, but when you talk about rappers in films, I don't really think the quality of the acting is most important because most rappers are put in movies because of the personality and people want to see that.

I started out as an actor but now I act to fund my own productions. I've managed to separate my mindset.

We want the best actor, and that's why Matt Damon worked so well in this role, because he's a great actor.

I was heartbroken at the end of that, because I thought that was going to be it for me. Somehow I had worked my way into this movie and it had exposed me to people and I had a chance to be an actor, which I loved, but I didn't think it was ever going to happen again.

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.

As a fortysomething actor, you reach a plateau of maturity from which you can really get stuck in.

It'd be disingenuous to say I don't like attention - I'm an actor for God's sake - and it's flattering and all, but attention was never my big goal. I just like to work and have a good time.