Actor Quotes
-
Becoming an actor wasn’t a choice – it was something I was forced into. At 3, you can’t make those choices... I supported my family, and if I got fired or missed an audition, I’d be punished as if I’d messed up in school. I was starved, because they wanted to keep my weight at a certain place; my hair was bleached – that was my life. I wasn’t allowed to play with kids on my block or ride a bike or play ball, in case I got a scratch – I wasn’t even allowed to be bar mitzvahed because I couldn’t attend enough lessons.
-
When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.
-
The difference between the actor and the painter is that the actor would buy somebody a knish in order to have them watch him act.
-
A good actor is someone who knows how to take the part and make it real and make it honest and be effective in it. If it's in a funny movie and, as long as they are cast in an appropriate way, humor will come from it.
-
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 think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.
-
Much of the day I have busied myself making notes on the small parts in Shakespeare, often nameless, which are rewarding to the actor if only he'll not dismiss them as beneath his dignity. If I can work it up into a talk I might call it, 'Only a cough and a spit ' -the phrase so often used by actors to explain away a lack of opportunity.
-
It wasn't a mission to be a rock star. It wasn't a mission of mine to even be a movie star. I just intended to be a good actor.
-
No actor forgets the times he couldn't get a job. I think everyone doing this operates from that fear. You don't want that momentum to stop when you get it.
-
By being an actor, one can explore various personalities of a human being, be that person, behave and live that person's life, and then you are back to your normal life.
-
I made a decision that whether or not I was going to make under the national poverty level wasn't going to play a part in whether or not I was an actor. That's what I do.
-
An actor rides in a bus or railroad train; he sees a movement and applies it to a new role. The whole garment in which the actor hides himself is made of small externals of observation fitted to his conception of a role.
-
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an actor. It has just always been an inevitability on some level.
-
I always have to come back to shows to take out the improvements actors have put in. Laughs are addictive, and sometimes they're good laughs, and sometimes they're bad laughs.
-
I started as a child, in this PBS series 'Voyage of the Mimi,' which led to driving down to New York for 'Afterschool Special' auditions, which led to moving to Los Angeles. I wanted to be an actor. But in L.A., I got into film technology, and I was building cheap editing systems and would edit my friend's acting reels.
-
People keep trying to make me a movie star but they just don't understand. I'm not a movie star, I'm an actor.
-
As an actor, you should always keep your trump card hidden from your audience. I want the audience to keep expecting more and more from me. I want to do 'different' work - good and memorable roles - so that audience appreciate me more. That's why I love to surprise my audience with something they never expect me to do.
-
The role of Rimbaud is one of the most important roles to play for a young actor.
-
I actually find in America, there's a slight snobbery about actors who go back and forth between big heavy dramas and popcorn fare. That always intrigues me, because that doesn't exist in the same way in Britain. And I imagine it would be worse. In terms of the sort of class, and the sort of snobby, slightly on the back-foot thing Britain has. But it's much more prevalent in America. I'm really intrigued by it. I don't know why that is. But I'm aiming to break down those barriers by being in a Shakespeare film and a Smurfs film within six months of each other.
-
Only a madman or an actor would want to be President of the United States.
-
I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.
-
If you have the opportunity to meet someone as an actor, it's just great fodder for you. It's wonderful source stuff that we die for.
-
When I got into the film world, I got sucked into the secular aspect of the entertainment field and I really drifted away from my faith. Its amazing...as successful as I was as an actor, and the money and the fame, there was still something missing.
-
Here in England, my becoming an actor was considered unimaginative.
