actors Quotes

The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part. Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it.

Every time I am reading actors I can pretty well tell which ones have studied with Meisner. It is because they are honest and simple and don't lay on complications that aren't necessary.

Actors are basically drag queens. People will tell you they act because they want to heal mankind or, you know, explore the nature of the human psyche. Yes, maybe. But basically we just want to put on a frock and dance.

There's no such thing as a small part. There are just small actors.

James Gandolfini was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time... A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes. I remember telling him many times, 'You don't get it. You're like Mozart.'

We're all different. Some people are musicians, some people are actors, some people are agents and some people are accountants... We're all different.

As far as I'm concerned, the world is composed of stories. For architects, the world is composed of buildings, for actors the world is composed of theatres, or whatever... For me, the world is simply composed of stories, when I look, that's what I see.

I usually try not to think about actors while writing, because the odds of those stars aligning and you getting those specific people are so rare.

I did not think I had what it took to be an actor, because most of the actors that I encountered were people who were very narcissistic and I thought since I lacked narcissism to become an actor because that's what it took. It was more of a social experiment for me to walk in the shoes of other people that I found interesting.

If the [actors] are working, and I have a dinner engagement, I don't do 20 takes. I do five takes and go home. I want to go to dinner.

Sometimes some of the best moments are contributed by the actors being creative, with their own improvisations.

The less I speak to the actors, the better. And I always hire great people, and I don't want to impose my pre-conceived notions on them. They know how to play it.

I myself don't like to speak to the actors at all. I like to hire great people and let them do their thing. I don't like to speak to them. I don't like to have lunch with them. I don't like to socialize with them. I don't like to hear their ideas.

As actors, we were fighting that tooth and nail because of fear, because language is a crutch and dialogue is a crutch, and it's so easy to just have a great writer write you a line.

All actors have to make the words fit in their mouths, and make the words the words fit to how you say it and how you make it life-like and make it look like what you're saying is just conversation that you're just thinking off the top of your head. That process is not quite improvisation.

I'm always excited to be around other actors. I sometimes only get to work with myself, and it's so tedious. I was so excited to go to work every day, and we ran into work every day.

I have great faith in the actors. When they improvise, it always sounds better than the stuff I write in my bedroom. When they improvise, they make it sound alive.

As actors you have this trait to imitate very easily. I don't want to imitate anything or limit myself of finding this creature, this woman because I'm looking at magazines and I'm reading comics, and I'm asking people that are avid readers of The Guardians.

To be able to rely completely on the actors was a very simple process for me.

In a way, all actors are gypsies, or much like a traveling circus.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

It's interesting for me to do the commentary with the actors because, as a director, you're so in your own world that you see it from your perspective, your issues and what you were trying to do, and then it's really very fun to hear their perspective on how it was to do a particular scene or how they felt, and sometimes, I didn't even know that, at the time.

You can't trust actors.

To have a director that loves his actors is something that you can see in the film and in the fruits of that labor. You can see that translated in the film. When you watch such movie, you can see a director who loves his actors, and it shines through the movie, in my eyes.

There are street artists. Street musicians. Street actors. But there are no street physicists. A little known secret is that a physicist is one of the most employable people in the marketplace - a physicist is a trained problem solver.

The world has obviously changed in terms of the way filmmakers and actors and writers often look at their own careers. They all seem to want to include in their own process - along with some of their iconic and franchise-driven movies.

I'm one of those actors who says, \'Point me toward the work that matters to me and I don't care where you're putting it. Television show. Movie. Projected on the back of someone's garage.\' If that's where the work is that's exciting to me and moving, I want to be there.

London's Windmill Theater grew famous for its nude tableaux. During the 1940 and 1950, this theater overcame the objections of censors by agreeing that none of its naked actors would move any part of his/her body.

Movie actors are just ordinary, mixed-up people - with agents.

If you're ever making a television show, don't cast smart actors because they are just a pain in the ass. The moment you start to bullshit them you've lost them, so you have to either know what you're talking about or when you don't talk to them.