Actor Quotes

Having a persona people recognize, it's the thing that probably gets you paid the most - but it's also the thing that virtually every actor in the world doesn't want. 'Cause, like, no one would believe me if I wanted to play something ultra-realistic, like a gangster or something.

I have one friend that I've had since I was born, and she's from Coatzacoalcos. She's not really impressed or interested in the actor's life. My family isn't really either.

And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in.

Those offers come in now and again. They're not knocking down my door. I'm only an old character actor, and I'm not needed.

When you choose to be an actor, you are going against the odds.

I just went into this business for laughs. I guess I don't mind being an actor so much now.

I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.

You can't get an actor to do something that is beyond his range, so you have to be aware of the range of the actor and, if necessary, alter the part to suit the actor.

As an actor, to play someone who's at war with himself, that's so interesting.

I can remember when nobody believed an actor and didn't care what he believed.

If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.

I always wanted to be an actor, but I was always fighting it. It never seemed that honorable to me, and I guess I was always afraid that I might fail.

Perhaps I'm not a good actor, but I would be even worse at doing anything else.

I've had some ambivalent feelings about being an actor. I don't know that I've ever been totally and completely comfortable with it.

Basically, you're selling a world as an actor, right? I mean it's like any sales person: if you believe in your product, you know your product, you sell it a lot better.

Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'

I'm the most out-of-work actor I know. In the last two years I've basically taken meetings for a living.

I could care less about being an action actor like Stallone or Schwarzenegger.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

My concern is to continue respecting my work as I've done since I began as an actor and I could only do that if I'm strong enough to keep on doing what I think best in an artistic way.

In live stage, the actor lives.

If they're willing to pay you what you think you're worth for it, that's why an actor goes to work. A lot of times they want to pay you a lot for a picture you don't want to do.

Even when I was little, people would always ask me if I wanted to be a movie star, and I would always say, 'No, I just want to be an actor.'

Every actor wants to direct.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.

Before I was an actor I was an apprentice jockey, and now I'm out there racing against boys, sort of the spokesperson for people over 50 that they can do it.

Sidney Poitier, who is class personified, said: 'Lou, you're a leading man because you're a good actor.' Brought tears to my eyes.

I did not want to put myself on the line, as an Australian playing Britain's greatest comic actor. The fans of Sellers are obsessive, possessive - and aggressive. I did not want to risk their anger - or my own reputation.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.