quotations about actors
Actors are madmen, the playgoers are fools.
ADOLPHE CLARENCE SCOTT
Actors are Madmen: Notebook of a Theatregoer in China
An actress is not a lady; at least, when she is, she is not an actress.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
The Drama Observed: 1911-1950
An actor's success has the life expectancy of a small boy about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom
Well, you go into rehearsal, when directors and actors start asking all sorts of unnecessary questions, because they don't understand half of it--the nature of the characters. Almost all of those answers, if the play is well constructed, are answered during rehearsal. You solve all those problems. Sometimes it's because the actor doesn't understand the character. Then you fire the actor and get another one who will understand what's going on. There may be lots of questions that anybody--an actor or a director or anybody--can ask about a character in a play of mine that are not answered in the play, but if it's a question that I don't think is relevant, I don't bother about it. There's no reason to ask it.
EDWARD ALBEE
interview, The Believer
Actors are uniquely vulnerable. Right or wrong, actors are adventurers, they are idealists, they are dreamers and they are romantics. They crave the intensity of the moment, and they gorge on the full spectrum of experience life has to offer. They strive to keep as many aspects of their personality alive as possible, whereas most people try to shut down as much of themselves as they can in order to make life simpler and less painful.
JAMES DEVEREAUX
"The Dignity of the Actor", The Great Acting Blog, October 16, 2017
Actors die so loud.
HENRY MILLER
attributed, The Quotable Quote Book
It is with some violation of the imagination that we conceive of an actor belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters which they assume upon the stage.
CHARLES LAMB
attributed, Day's Collacon
He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts -- figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
It Can't Happen Here
The greatest movie actors don't have to say or do anything, though a little trick at the right moment doesn't hurt. They're fascinating and emotion-filled in repose, and their action contains an ineffable core of stillness, a sort of inner mask that binds all expressions to an ideal perfection of the actor's own exemplary persona.
RICHARD BRODY
"Is Method Acting Destroying Actors?", The New Yorker
There are too many stars and too few actors.
BRUCE LEE
Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
We have too many answers. That's the problem with actors, they ask too many questions, and that's never been our problem because they just wanna get away from our answers. They're just like, "Can we just roll? Can you two just shut up and can we shoot it?"
JOHN LEE
interview, IndieWire, September 9, 2013
I have been accuse of saying that ["Actors are cattle."], but I believe what I said is, "Actors should be treated like cattle." Of course, I was joking, but it seems I was taken seriously. If I had been speaking seriously, I would have said, "Actors are children."
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, a Personal Biography
An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow.
EDWIN BOOTH
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
It is only when an actor feels that his inner and outer life on the stage is flowing naturally and normally, in the circumstances that surround him, that the deeper sources of his subconscious gently open, and from them come feelings we cannot always analyse.
KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKY
An Actor Prepares