actors Quotes

Love is the one emotion actors allow themselves to believe.

Since age 14, I know what actors fear, what they like; I know how to get things out of them and I listen to them better, since I've been there.

We had a showing of Battlestar in LA last week. I walked out the door and there were 50 people. I signed a ton of autographs. Other actors walked away without signing. These are the fans. I guess it depends. on who you are.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

I am not an enormous believer in research being the be-all and end-all. I get suspicious when I read about actors spending six months in a clinic, say, in order to play someone who is sick.

James Ivory comes close to the actors for the first rehearsal. He more or less lets you direct yourself and then will only correct you if he finds it incorrect.

Barack Obama did tell me that I was one of Michelle Obama's favorite actors.

It's really hard for actors to cross over and get any respect as a singer, and if I could just keep it separate and not use my music in movies, it's cool.

There's a real separation between actors and all the other functions of Hollywood. If you're an actor you're somehow not a member of the crew. You're somehow more special. I hate that.

Real actors are the most courageous people I know. They dare to live vibrantly in the present and to state in a clear way, and in front of hundreds of witnesses, 'this is what I know to be true; this is my point of view and I will risk my life for it. Think of me what you will, I will fight - with any and every means available to me - for what I know is as right and as necessary as air and water.'

I believe when actors say they can go crazy playing the same role, over and over again.

Actors are inherently self-centered. We're trained to focus on who I am. What do I want? Who is in my way? How do I get this? That's how we're trained. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills over into real life. But it's all very subjective. You just try to portray someone beyond the surface, the different layers.

There are a lot of actors who will watch the monitors. They'll do a scene, and then the director will look back to see if he got whatever he wanted. I just find it odd to sit there and watch yourself. But if you can be objective, I can see how it's really useful as a tool, especially if you're doing something physical.

I love my situation as a spectator. The actors are only a little bit ahead of the audience. The audience discovers the episode when it's screened, but we actors only discover the episode when we get the script, two weeks ahead of shooting. Until then, we know nothing of the evolution of our characters.

The truly great actors, like Charlize Theron, are just like, \'I'm an actor. For hire. I show up, I do my job.\' There's no \'I'm just waiting for the inspiration.\' They just do their jobs. They say, \'Let's go over the scene a few times and get it.\'

I don't like making a film and having the actors in character too much in magazines and on the net and everything else. Because you want to keep something back.

A lot of actors are just like la la la - they're never really connected and then they're in the scene and then boom. They're looking you in the eyes and they're just really focused.

I think that actors are terrible communicators as people by and large. I think our tendency is to kind of be self-centered and tune people out and just kind of get really me-focused, so I think communication for actors is a big challenge actually.

I am a professional actor and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do. They may inadvertently do it, but it's because of the script, not the acting.

The only boring part of it is finding the fact that got you from point A to point B. Most actors, if they're being honest, are not going to say that that's the most stimulating acting work they've ever done. But the dynamics of staring into the face of evil and it looking back at you, and seeing yourself in that or not, is interesting.

The idea the actors are the most important people on a film set I think is very stupid. Actors are the most replaceable people there. There are literally millions of us. There's very few people that can operate a steady-cam. The numbers are a lot, lot fewer for that, you know?

Whenever actors tout off about doing their own stunts, it's always ... they're so protective of you that I always know these stunt guys are so good [and] they're never going to put you in danger. But it's fun to do something kind of exciting, even something as simple as driving 70 through a tunnel with five motorcycles ... it sounds simple, but it's actually really nerve-wracking.

Actors are journeymen. We show up for work. We do the job and then we go. What goes on behind the scenes is what goes on behind the scenes.

I don't think actors are to blame for poor writing. The culture changes first, and the theater follows it. In the case of the movies, it's the same thing.

You have to make something good. Just because all the hot actors show up and the money is there and the explosives are ready, it doesn't matter.

Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way.

Some actors come to the set ready to do their parts a certain way.

Sam Jackson is a director's dream. Some actors hope to find their character during shooting. He knows his character before shooting. Sam's old-school. I just got out of his way. I never did more than two takes with Sam.-william friedkin

And what movies we saw! All the actors and actresses whose photographs I collected, with their look of eternity! Their radiance, their eyes, their faces, their voices, the suavity of their movements! Their clothes! Even in prison movies, the stars shone in their prison clothes as if tailors had accompanied them in their downfall.