Actor Quotes

When you're just an actor, maybe not the top of the list guys, you get constant rejection and it's fun.

I'd like to play Matt Damon's daddy. He's a wonderful actor, I really admire him, and I'd like to play his dad one day.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

I'm just a hired actor who was hired for a particular job, but I think one of the joys of reading the script was the way that the personal and the global are woven together.

As a director, I've been able to combine with what I've learned as an actor and as a producer: it melds quite nicely into what I feel like I should have been doing all along.

Just about every actor wants to be a Disney cartoon voice at some point.

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

The lighting is so important. One thing that makes me nuts about the lighting now is that they spend an enormous amount of time lighting the set, the background. But the most important thing in the scene is the actor.

Being an actor: that's a pretty big net. That's a big playing field. The Screen Actors' Guild is filled with many, many, many, many people and vastly different careers.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.

Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.

I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I've ever seen on the movies.

Well, in order for me to be successful... In order to be a great artist - musician, actor, painter, whatever - you must be able to be private in public at all times.

An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.

One thing that's great about being a character actor is that a movie doesn't rest on your shoulders. If it bombs, it won't hurt my career.

And costume is so important for an actor. It absolutely helps to get into character; it's the closest thing to you, it touches you. Some actors like to go into make-up and then put their clothes on, but I like to dress first; that's my routine.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

All I am hoping for is to be able to work - I think my best work is still ahead of me - I think all that I have been through in the last several years have only made me a better, more interesting actor.

To be an actor you have to be a child.

The body is an actor's tool, like the face, malleable. I never thought that being naked was immoral or outrageous.

An athlete and actor are really two different temperaments, night and day. As an athlete you really keep things out and as an actor you really bring things in.

In those days I was mortified, because I was a serious actor in my own mind, and then all of a sudden I'm this hunk.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

They had some really cool rigged cars and things that were different that they would tow behind the camera car that were actually on these trailers that manipulated side to side and stuff like they were getting hit, and actually put the actor right in the middle of the chase.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

As an actor I've been attracted to the sort of films that I want to go and see. That tends to usually be drama-related.

My goal was just to work regularly. I didn't ever expect to be rich or famous. I wanted to be a working character actor.

My acting ability would have sent me back to the post office. It was my singing that got me jobs. Ironically, now, people think of me as an actor and don't know me much as a singer.

My advice to an aspiring actor would be to never stop learning or working for what you want. Nothing comes easy, ever, if you want something, you have to work for it. By working for it I mean work on your craft, learn from people who have something to teach. It's just like anything else, practice makes perfect.

I didn't think I was an actor and fought it for a long time. Nobody paid for that but me.