“Actors are often inspired while playing by the very spirit who impressed the part upon the writer. When the actor is really mediumistic, as all great actors are whether they know it or not, the spirit may actually play the part through him.”

— Natacha Rambova

On the metaphysics of acting, p. 209
Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon (2009)

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Natacha Rambova 13

American film personality and fashion designer 1897–1966

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Theater

“The only actors who can really do justice to their parts are the ones who don't know what they are.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"Kevin Malone", New Terrors (1980), ed. Ramsey Campbell, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Endangered Species (1989), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction

“It's true that old actors don't die, their parts get smaller. You're less likely to get the part, many parts, if you're playing people your age as opposed to people who are younger. There are fewer parts around.”

Albert Finney (1936–2019) English actor

Interview with Paul Fischer at Dark Horizons (2 December 2003).

“Administration is not unlike play-acting. The task of the good actor is to know and play his role, although different roles may differ greatly in content. The effectiveness of the performance will depend on the effectiveness of the play and the effectiveness with which it is played. The effectiveness of the administrative process will vary with the effectiveness of the organization and the effectiveness with which its members play their parts.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 252; As cited in: Herbert Simon (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial. page xii.

“You could heave a brick out of the window and hit ten actors who could play my parts. I just happened to be on the right corner at the right time.”

Boris Karloff (1887–1969) English actor

As quoted in "All He Needed Was a Good Scare" by Samuel Grafton, Good Housekeeping (August 1951), p. 136

“Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the extraordinary father of modern conjuring, made the salient point that ‘a magician is an actor playing the part of a magician’. This is a very good description. However, an actor takes for granted how to create drama in every word, movement and look. The average magician is barely aware of its existence.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

“Kazan is a performer's director, the best director I ever worked with… Most actors don't get any help from directors. Emotional help, if you're playing an emotional part. Kazan is the only one I know who really gives you help.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Elia Kazan

“I've never liked Welles as an actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down the drain, you see, that's when he's croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely overrated filmmaker.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

On Orson Welles
Jan Aghed interview (2002)

“Actresses can only play women. I'm an actor, I can play anything.”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

Speaking on The Today Show on January 13, 1986; as quoted in Whoopi Goldberg on Stage and Screen https://www.google.com/books/edition/Whoopi_Goldberg_on_Stage_and_Screen/WTH-SHM1LrkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22an%20actress%20can%20only%20play%20a%20woman%22 (2013) by Lisa Pertillar Brevard, p. 18.

“The actors feel that the music played before the curtain rises will put the audience in the wrong mood. The playwright suggests that the (purposefully lugubrious) music be played at twice-speed. This peps it up somewhat while retaining its essentially dark and gloomy character. The actors listen carefully, and are pleased.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“Opening", opening
Forty Stories (1987)

“Actors are often inspired while playing by the very spirit who impressed the part upon the writer. When the actor is really mediumistic, as all great actors are whether they know it or not, the spirit may actually play the part through him.”

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Natacha Rambova 13

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