Acting quotes

“Acting is like roller-skating. Once you know how to do it, it is neither stimulating nor exciting.”
George Sanders

“The important thing for a star is to have an interesting face. He doesn't have to move it very much. Editing and camerawork can always produce the desired illusion that a performance is being given.”
George Sanders

“Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.”
Laurence Olivier

“Nothing is too shocking for me. When you tell the story of a man who loses his head, you have to show the head being cut off. Otherwise it's just a dirty joke without a punch line.”
Roman Polanski

“Movies are fun, but they're not a cure for cancer.”
Warren Beatty

“I play John Wayne in every part regardless of the character, and I've been doing okay, haven't I?”
John Wayne

“I felt like an impostor, taking all that money for reciting ten or twelve lines of nonsense a day.”
Errol Flynn

“I didn't know you ever had, darling.”

John Barrymore On Katharine Hepburn

“It sure beats working.”

Robert Mitchum

“Sometimes I just crave to play in Shakespeare again.”
Basil Rathbone

“Marilyn Monroe was no fun to work with. She would report to work around 5:00 in the evening. You've been in make-up since 8:30 in the morning waiting for her.”
Tony Randall On Marilyn Monroe

“I mean, a Mexican boy couldn't be anything else but an Indian.”
Anthony Quinn

“Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on.”
River Phoenix

“I make two movies a year to take care of the butcher and the baker and the school fees. Then I try to write, but it's not that easy. Acting is what's easy.”
David Niven

“I like that kind of 'straight-faced' comedy. I like to be straight-faced and outrageous.”
Leslie William Nielsen

“Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.”
Paul Newman

“I gave up being serious about making pictures around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took a hundred and twenty five takes to say ‘no’.”
Robert Mitchum

“I know what's good for me. I can't play black or gray. I can't be a villain or anything close to one. I have to play white.”
Alan Ladd

“I don't care how small the parts are, as long as they're good.”
Alan Ladd

“It really doesn't matter whether it's the villain or the hero. Sometimes the villain is the most colorful. But I prefer a part where you don't know what he is until the end.”
Glenn Ford

“An actor should be ready to play any role within reason. For example, I think the most ridiculous thing for me to do would be to try and play Shakespeare.”
Glenn Ford

“I've made 122 movies, and I dare say there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.”
Tony Curtis

“When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.”
Richard Burton

“The most trying work time with an actress I can ever recall.”

Charlton Heston On Sophia Loren

“Dirty Harry, for example. Clint Eastwood was not a rogue cop. He was a maverick cop, but he was a good guy.”
Charlton Heston On Clint Eastwood