Acting Quotes

I have a lot of great distractions outside of acting.

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

When I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just relieved for me that I had finally started to focus.

The foundation for film acting is stage acting.

I was studying acting in New York, and wasn't being hired by anyone to do anything other than to work in an Oriental rug warehouse.

What happens on 'Mad Men' in terms of the acting and the writing and the directing, it's superior. And yes, it has tremendous cache and buzz because it's become iconic, but it also deserves all the kudos and the awards as well, because it's a beautiful show to look at.

I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.

You spend enough time on set as an actor and it's great when a director was at some point an actor or understands acting. They're able to finesse performances out of you that a lot directors can't get.

Acting is my first love.

Kylie and I were both taking piano lessons at the time and didn't think of acting. A friend rang mum up and said, 'How about bringing Kylie and Danielle in because they might be right for the part?'

To me, getting to do music and videos, you work on a character. Being onstage is acting; you get to be larger than life and larger than yourself.

When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.

I don't know if acting is what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's just what I've, you know, ended up doing when I was little, and I've kinda grown up with it.

I went through this realization that acting, at its heart, is the ability to manipulate your own emotions.

Well, I'm never happier than when I'm acting.

In terms of work, obviously acting is such a job that is very in the flesh kind of thing. It's your work, but it's your life, in a way. You can get so mixed up.

You know, my parents have always been incredibly supportive. I'm an only child, so we're very close. There's just the three of us. They're exceptional parents but also great friends. My father was able to take his hobby, photography, and turn it into a beautiful career. So when they saw how much I loved acting, they were 100 percent behind me.

There is this immediate connection, this intimacy when you're acting because there's no room to be polite or shy. Also, as an actor I get to connect with women I've never met before.

I did a film once that I was killed in. It was a painful, horrifying day. It was a wonderful day from the standpoint of acting, but I was a wreck otherwise.

I've given up on trying to explain myself, or trying to set the record straight, or trying to get people to understand what I'm really like as a man, outside of my acting, outside of my job.

I can watch a movie and go, 'Oh, my god, that person is acting.' If you just listen to what the other person is saying, your response will always be genuine.

My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.

I've never been in the music industry, only acting.

I've always held to the belief, though, that people who do too much acting training always look like they're acting, you know?

When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear.

Producing is the hardest of the three because there is almost no closure. Every time you solve a problem, another one pops up. Directing is second, and acting is the most fun.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

Our leaders are acting like lemmings.

It doesn't work that way, you know, because most parts that you think you'd do well, most other people don't. So they offer you something - The Avengers is a good example... I fitted into that because I came from that sort of background. It's not even acting.

Well every moment, every project is different. I took a very slow approach to acting, trying to really work with people I could learn from. And I got something different out of each experience.