Quotes about actor
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“When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

Way

“Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

“The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Science

“Actors need a kind of aggression, a kind of inner force. Don't be only one-sided, sweet, nice, good. Get rid of being average. Find the killer in you.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Source: The Art of Acting

“Both Averill and Bayar were like actors speaking lines for their audience and not to each other.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

“I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Time

“Dean's California--wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actors.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Lovers, Bird

“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Feeling

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”

Frank Capra (1897–1991) Sicilian-born American film director

1001 quotations to inspire you before you die, Quintessence Editions Ltd., 2016, ISBN 978-1-84403-895-4

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Change

“Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Heart

“Because ultimately only the witness -- and not the actors -- knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi)”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

Truth

“If there's anything unsettling to the stomach, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.”

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

Personality

“Actors search for rejection. If they don’t get it they reject themselves.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

“You must become the producer, director and actor in the unfolding story of your life.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Life

“I was always a reluctant actor! I continue to be that. I announce a project, the camera rolls and I'm happy. I'm fortunate to be doing leading parts even now. Except for my mentor K. Balachander, for whom I can do even a walk-on part. When he directed his 100th film, I just walked in to do a small role. I just clowned around on camera.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Aamir's choice of films makes Kamal Haasan happy

Happiness, Parting

“I grew up in a family where no one was in the entertainment business. So stand-up and acting were seen as something unrealistic. I always thought it was just people in L. A. and New York that became actors or comedians.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Ed Will (April 28, 2006) "Your face sure is familiar. ...", The Denver Post, p. FF-09.

People, Family, Business

“Often in the theatre I can hardly hear myself talking or assuring my doxy that so-and-so is the same fellow that played so-and-so in so-and-so, he's very good, he's a civil servant in the Department of Agriculture, I met a sister of his in Skerries, and so on. Actors should conduct themselves like the rest of us and practise the unobtrusive intonation of the gentleman.”

Flann O'Brien (1911–1966) Irish writer

Page 37
The Best of Myles (1968)

Sister

“Shortly after I was offered the role, I realized that although it would be possible to replace all of the members of the staff and all of the other actors, it would not be possible to replace me. I also realized that if I didn't go into work because I was sick, none of the members of the special effects staff would be able to do their work. All of this gave me a tremendous sense of pride.”

Haruo Nakajima (1929–2017) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Haruo Nakajima Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/nakajima.htm, Kaiju Conversations (March 1995)

Sense

“The news team, and Hamin, seemed well pleased. “You should have been an actor, Jernau Gurgeh,” Hamin told him.
Gurgeh assumed this was intended as a compliment.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, The Player of Games (1988), Chapter 3 “Machina Ex Machina” (p. 306).

“In the United States, we’ve long had a free market system, but that system is not what it once was. Total government spending–state, federal, and local–has grown in real terms by more than 400 percent since 1965. Government spending is now one-third of the economy. As the private economy retreats, the importance of a new marketplace grows: the political marketplace. Products and services are no longer judged according to their usefulness to the economy at large–they’re judged according to whether or not they are politically useful or connected. The political marketplace is the marketplace of crony capitalism. Its supply and demand are lobbying expenditures and the resulting federal program or carve out. Its actors are not firms, but the political class and the politicians they influence”

Ted Budd (1971) American politician

Rep. Budd: The Political Market vs. the Private Market http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/02/rep-budd-political-market-vs-private-market/ (May 2, 2017)

““All life is theatre,” he said. “We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves….” He laughed gently. “Some players would say that is the best kind of theatre there can be.””

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 9 “The City” (p. 139)

Life

“[Unnamed actress on the set of Grand Prix] never had eyes for me. Hell, she wouldn't even talk to me, after she'd found out that I was just an unimportant actor. Good grief! Then, this is what happened: We were sitting in the foyer of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. She, myself and Antonio. Then an assistant director crossed our path. That actress was trying to get him to take us to the theatre where they were showing the rushes of the day before. After some discussion, she persuaded him. He said: `Be quiet, I'm gonna lose my job…' So we hid in the balcony, looking down, where that wonderful director Frankenheimer was sitting. After some minutes of racing cars, finally her scene came, and she was doing a phone call - she was playing a sophisticated magazine editor -, and suddenly you could hear the director, who had this loud, resonant voice, howling in rage, because he didn't like her at all. `Oh my God, she's awful! She can't walk, she can't talk, look at her hair!' So he turned to that faggot hairdresser, who was like Katherine the Great, and this guy said: `Well, usually she plays this peasant types. I don't know why you cast her for this role in the first place!”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

And remember, this actress was sitting there with us, and she nearly went crazy! She was squirming with embarrassment. This is an actor's nightmare, you know. The next day she was fired.
Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

God, Cars, Guy, Hell

“But you can't emphasize "beef", that's like his wanting me to emphasize "in" before "July"! Come on, fellows, you're losing your heads! I wouldn't direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare! The way you do this, it's impossible!”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

The Findus Foods "Frozen Peas" Session Out-Takes

Way

“King Kong was difficult only because of the hours we had to put in. At that time, there was no protection for actors about time or anything. We worked straight through for 22 hours once on Kong. It was really a wearying experience, because it was mechanics, really, as much as anything that we were dealing with. The technicality was transparency to transparency from the rear, and then re-photographing me in the foreground on the same level with that screen-so I couldn't really see what was happening at all! It had to be done many, many times to confirm that it was okay. So we worked for 22 hours!”

Fay Wray (1907–2004) actress

Rick McKay's Night on the Town with Fay Wray! http://www.rickmckay.com/Rick%20McKay%20-%20Fay%20Wray%20Interview.html (1998)

Time

“This paucity of actors on the stage reflects the liturgical roots of Greek theater, which continued to stick close to its religious origins. … [A] machine, called the mēchanē, was a sort of crane that swung an actor playing a god over the parapet of the skēnē and out above the stage (thus the Latin phrase deus ex machina for a solution from nowhere, an unforeseen answer to prayers).”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.IV The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule

God

“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 (1897–1966) American film personality and fashion designer

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

Parting

“[with Stephen Colbert, after presenting the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series to Ricky Gervais and being informed that Gervais was not there] Ricky Gervais couldn't be here tonight, so instead we're going to give this to our friend Steve Carell.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Carell, who was among the nominees who had just lost to Gervais, then ran onto the stage, where the three of them group-hugged and jumped around screaming.
The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards (2007)

“The next superstar could very well be ET!!! Sincerely, at that point in the history of Hollywood, there were no stars. Paul Newman has said on record, ‘What’s the point in my being an actor? The three greatest hits have been mechanical gadgets!’ There was a shark in Jaws that crashed the box-office, there was this peculiar animal in ET and there was that robot in Star Wars. I saw it millions of times. And everytime I see ET I find it’s a lovable person. So maybe you don’t need an actor, it’s going to be a computer! Look, one of the poignant scenes in 2001 Space Odyssey was the death of the computer. The computer on board is programmed to take the spaceship to a particular planet and also manage everything, right to the food of the astronauts. Then they realize that this very same computer is actually programmed to sabotage the mission. So this astronaut unscrews the computer. It dies with the voice going fainter ‘Don’t kill … me … don’t … kill me’. If just mechanical gadgets are going to be moving us to tears, then Paul Newman is right. What is the need for actors?”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Death, War, Food, History

“Shammiji is said to be India's answer to Elvis Presley, but I say that Elvis Presley is America's answer to Shammi Kapoor. The mark of a good actor is the belief with which he gives a shot and Shammiji gave his each shot with a strong belief and that makes him a great actor of all times.”

Aamir Khan (1965) Indian film actor, director, and producer of Hindi Cinema

Expressing his admiration for Shammi Kapoor http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayArticle.php?id=n061508120937

Strong, Time

“I have to believe… the reason I got the part is that in their eyes I represented the character and what he’d really be like if he were alive. But the reason I represented him is that as a kid growing up I constantly thought about it. I was a bit of a loner. I used to come back home from school and then while I was kicking a ball against the wall for hours, I’d daydream about this. I really believe this shapes our lives and brings things to us. Fans like to think that there’s an element of kismet when an actor is cast as a superhero — that the actor was somehow fated to play the character. I believe that if there is such a thing that it would apply in my case. If you look at my screen test, which you can see online, you can see the dedication that I had… even in the screen test. I was so into it, that for me, it was real.”

Burt Ward (1945) American actor

Burt Ward — A Slice of SciFi Interview http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2011/04/27/burt-ward-a-slice-of-scifi-interview/ (April 27, 2011)

Fate, School, Home, Thinking

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

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

"Paradox on Acting" (1830), as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker

“A precondition for political change lies in the disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power toward those actors who would benefit most from a change in the system.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

p, 125
War and Change in World Politics (1981)

Change

“The marketing needs a better campaign based on the visitor's appetite and segment. If there are a lot of Middle East tourists traveling to Puncak to seek janda, I think that it's OK. The tourists would bring numerous benefits to the women and their offspring, as well as the country's entertainment community. If the janda get modest homes even if the tourists later leave them, then it's OK. The children resulting from these relationships will have good genes. There will be more television actors and actresses from these pretty boys and girls.”

Jusuf Kalla (1942) The tenth Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia

Quoted in "VP moots using women in Arab tourism push" http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20060629.@02, The Jakarta Post (2006-06-29).

Women, Children, Travel, Home

“This poet is now, most of the time, an elder statesman like Baruch or Smuts, full of complacent wisdom and cast-iron whimsy. But of course there was always a good deal of this in the official rôle that Frost created for himself; one imagines Yeats saying about Frost, as Sarah Bernhardt said about Nijinsky: “I fear, I greatly fear, that I have just seen the greatest actor in the world.”
Sometimes it is this public figure, this official rôle — the Only Genuine Robert Frost in Captivity — that writes the poems, and not the poet himself; and then one gets a self-made man’s political editorials, full of cracker-box philosophizing, almanac joke-cracking — of a snake-oil salesman’s mysticism; one gets the public figure’s relishing consciousness of himself, an astonishing constriction of imagination and sympathy; one gets sentimentality and whimsicality; an arch complacency, a complacent archness; and one gets Homely Wisdom till the cows come home.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Other Frost”, pp. 30–31
Poetry and the Age (1953)

Wisdom, World, Fear, Home

“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

Justice, Parting

“Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant little to the wealthy. The rich in ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing — running servants replaced running water. Television and radio — the patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading artists as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. They would have welcomed the improvements in transportation and in medicine, but for the rest, the great achievements of western capitalism have rebounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 147

Life, Home, Water, Personality

“Movie actors are just ordinary mixed-up people—with agents.”

Jean Kerr (1922–2003) Irish-American author and playwright

Mary, Mary, Act II http://books.google.com/books?id=8YuwAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Movie+actors+are+just+ordinary+mixed-up+people+with+agents%22&pg=PA74#v=onepage (1961)

People

“Errol Flynn was an excellent fencer. He also knew his lines, something I greatly respect in an actor. Of course there was one glaring inconsistency with his professionalism. Errol also drank on the set, something I greatly disliked. You couldn't stop him. If the director prohibited alcohol on the set, then Errol would inject oranges with booze and eat during breaks. Everything good that we got on film was shot early in the day. He started gulping his water early in the morning and by four P. M. was in no shape to continue filming.”

Maureen O'Hara (1920–2015) Irish-American film actress and singer

Source: Tis Herself (2004), p.214-215

Alcohol, Water

“This is a painful movie to watch. But it is also exhilarating, as all good movies are, because we are watching the director and actors venturing beyond any conventional idea of what a modern movie can be about. Here there is no plot, no characters to identify with, no hope. But there is care: The filmmakers care enough about these people to observe them very closely, to note how they look and sound and what they feel.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/naked-1994 of Naked (18 February 1994) Reviews, Four star reviews

Pain, People, Hope, Feeling

“The truth is nobody finances tiny movies anymore. I mean there are so many movies I like that I hope will get their money together. It's a different world than it was when I first started making independent movies. Something is really wrong right now. I was a part of it and things are so different now. You can't make a movie for three million dollars with a kind of known actor. It's impossible. I think in general it has to do with the financial state of the country. It's tough for everybody in every business, but the independent movies have really suffered I think…they would never have made Secretary. They never would have financed Secretary with an unknown actress and James Spader. There's just no way.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977) American actress

2008-07-11, Comics2Film

Money, Truth, World, Hope

“If the English version is in what, in our youth, we used to speak of affectionately as dear old iambic pentameter, the actors mercifully abstain from reciting it that way; they speak their lines as good, hardy prose. p. 76”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919

Youth, Way

“Primarily, they (ideas) come from daydreaming or every day occurrences. I try to get out and about, especially new places to let the environment inspire me. I start an illustration of a building I see and then the elements of different characters will populate in my mind like a set and actors on a stage. If nothing comes up I continue to draw until something unfolds.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Regarding how he comes up with ideas for his comic strips The Goodbye Family and The Noodle Rut (1 June 2017). Source: Lorin Morgan-Richards Newsletter #2, Us6.campaign-archive2.com, 2017-06-26 http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51e751ef352e602deca0ecdc7&id=2e82f26313,

Idea, Drawing

“I think everyone has what it takes to be a good actor innately within them. It’s really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person. You can’t become another person if you’re not self-aware; you wouldn’t know what’s changed. [But] the ability to play pretend is something that everyone has access to; you see little kids doing it. On the spectrum of imagination, there are people who are more imaginative than others—I guess some kids are hardcore pretenders and have imaginary friends for years and other kids play and they have fun, but it’s not quite as specific like that. I’m sure there’s a range, but I think everyone can pretend.”

Bryce Dallas Howard (1981) American actress

Bryce Dallas Howard https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bryce-dallas-howard (February 10, 2017)

People, Behavior, Imagination, Thinking

“I had recklessly dared to do what I wouldn't dare to do today. The knight performs his morning prayer. When he is ready to pack up his chess set, he turns around, and there stands Death. 'Who are you?' asks the knight. 'I am Death.' Bengt Ekerot and I agreed that Death should have the features of a white clown. An amalgamation of a clown mask and a skull. It was a delicate and dangerous artistic move, which could have failed. Suddenly, an actor appears in whiteface, dressed all in black, and announces that he is Death. Everyone accepted the dramatic feat that he was Death, instead of saying, 'Come on now, don't try to put something over us! You can't fool us! We can see that you are just a talented actor who is painted white and clad in black! You're not Death at all!”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

But nobody protested. That made me feel triumphant and joyous.
Images : My Life in Films (1990)

Death, Fools, Feeling, Appearance

“And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
Above the arrowy, still string,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe
Of the actor, half his gesture, half
His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk
Sodden with his melancholy words,
The weather of his stage, himself.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Color, Mood, Weather

“I have seen the sunset, stained with mystic horrors,
Illumine the rolling waves with long purple forms,
Like actors in ancient plays.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

J'ai vu le soleil bas, taché d'horreurs mystiques, Illuminant de longs figements violets, Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques. St. 9 Le Bateau Ivre http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Boat.html (The Drunken Boat) (1871)

“I thought, ‘This is just too terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like that before.’ I hadn’t been allowed to watch horror movies before that. I was so traumatized I literally could not sleep for weeks, and it changed my physical appearance; I lost like 10 pounds. My teachers got so concerned they called my mother, ‘Is there something going on – is she being abused at home?’ My mother found a picture of Robert Englund the actor, and Robert Englund in the Freddy Krueger make-up, and pasted them up near my bedside table. So, every night when I’d go to sleep, literally for like a year, I’d have to look at it and think, ‘It’s just a movie, it’s just a movie, it’s not real.’ I remember thinking that I was going to grow up one day, and be an actress and never make a movie that scares little kids.”

Monica Keena (1979) American actress

Discussing A Nightmare on Elm Street in Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)

Home, Thinking, Sleep, Teachers

““Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha… Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor’s eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move… The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!”
- About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Abhinaya and Netrābhinaya Source: Indigenous Sanskrit theatre form, The Hindu, Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007 http://www.hindu.com/br/2007/07/31/stories/2007073150031600.htm

World, Flying

“I love acting because it’s my heart. I love playing characters. When I get on the set, something snaps in me, something different. It’s what I was meant to do. I love working with other actors, I love working with directors, and I love creating something. From the DP [director of photography] to the director and the actors—and even down to the catering—you know, it’s just a family.”

Tara Reid (1975) American actress

Tara Reid Is Not a Loser https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wd47d5/tara-reid-is-not-a-loser-954 (August 30 2014)

Love, Family, Heart

“This program fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship. I achieve all the results you’ll see here through a varied mixture of those techniques. At no point are actors or stooges used in the show.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

“The dialectical critique of positivist habits of mind … is interested only in behaviour which is ‘important’ to the actor; that is, behaviour which is emotionally charged to the degree that it is either frequently recalled, reflected upon, or day-dreamed about. … That science which is less discriminating in the behaviour it chooses to investigate gains clarity and distinctiveness at the cost of confining itself to the trivial.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 168

Dreams, Science

“I think acting is something that I want to make sure that, if I do make that transition, I want to make sure that it's really dramatic, and put my energy into acting, you know, fully instead of trying to balance a whole lot of things at once, 'cause I really don't want to become one of those singer-trying-to-be-actor-but-didn't-really-work kind of thing.”

Skye Sweetnam (1988) Canadian singer-songwriter

On becoming a full-time actress

Thinking

“Hell is other actors,” Kirsten said. “Also ex-boyfriends.”

Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven

Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 10 (p. 49)

Hell

“Why bother to remake Fame if you don't have clue about why the 1980 movie was special? Why take a touching experience and make it into a shallow exercise? Why begin with a R-rated look at plausible kids with real problems and tame it into a PG-rated after-school special? Why cast actors who are sometimes too old and experienced to play seniors, let alone freshmen?”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fame-2009 of Fame (23 Sep 2009) Reviews, Two star reviews

School, Exercises, Problem

“Governments now have to share the stage with actors who can use information to enhance their soft power and press governments directly, or indirectly by mobilizing their publics.”

Joseph Nye (1937) American political scientist

Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 8, The Information Revolution and the Diffusion of Power, p. 246.

“Coming back doing interviews is weird. It’s like an actor who takes a year off and just goes home, settles down, does some gardening, wakes up in the morning, worries about what to have for breakfast, then suddenly you’re plonked back in the middle of it all.”

Holly Johnson (1960) British artist

Frankie go bang! http://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=989 by Paul Simper at zttaat.com, Accessed May 2014.

Home

“(Sean Connery) was the most conceited actor I've ever worked with! He is rich, successful and handsome…good Lord, why does he act that way? He doesn't want anybody near him! If there was anything or anybody that might have taken the eyes of the spectator off of him, he just went to the director and complained, as if he didn't already have enough screen time! Murray Abraham was so different, such a nice man…And there was one brilliant German or Austrian actor on this movie who looked like Falstaff, big, fat guy, a marvellous presence. Helmut Qualtinger was his name. He was terrific!”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Way, Guy, Time, Success

“I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy. I… was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me. I'd never even been to Wrigley Field. I never even enjoyed baseball that much, but I loved being there, the crowd was lovely, and they all sang with me!”

Bea Arthur (1922–2009) actress, singer, comedian

Interview, TV Legends, August 6, 2005

Love, Women, Happiness

“Edwin Fischer was, on the concert platform, a short, leonine, resilient figure, whose every fiber seemed to vibrate with elemental musical power. Wildness and gentleness were never far from each other in his piano-playing, and demonic outbursts would magically give way to inner peace. It was as little trouble to him (as Alfred Polgar once said of an actor) to lose himself as to find himself.
His playing of slow movements was full of an unselfconsciousness beside which the music-making of others, famous names included, seemed academic or insincere. With Fischer, one was in more immediate contact with the music: there was no curtain before the soul when he communicated with the audience. One other musician, Furtwangler, conveyed to the same degree this sensation of music not being played, but rather happening by itself.”

Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author

As cited in: Ruth Hanna Sachs, ‎D. E. Heap, ‎Joyce Light (2005). White Rose History, Volume II (Academic Version). p. 366

Peace, Music, Way, Soul

“I think of myself as an actor and not a movie star. I like doing movies; I enjoy it. But, essentially, I'm a theater actor. That's the only place I feel like I actually am a star. In the theater, I can put people in the seats and sell tickets.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

Amy Longsdorf (January 25, 2000) "Isnt' He Great? - Hollywood Sure Thinks So, But Nathan Lane Is Still More Comfortable Onstage Than On Celluloid", The Record, p. Y1.

People, Feeling, Star, Thinking

“I don't know how this will end. All I know is Nanhoï's love. My son is my life. I believe in the magic of this love. He is the embodiment of life to me. The embodiment of beauty. Through him I'll find redemption and salvation. Then the wound in my soul - the wound I thought would never scar over - will stop bleeding. I thought I would have to tear it open once it began to heal. Back then, when I felt I couldn't stop being what is called an actor, when I told myself I was only doing it for the money and that it could be worse. Now, today, I'd rather be poor, but without nightmares and without the torture. If only I could! I wish I'd never been an actor! I wish I'd never had success! I'd rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and joy.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 316

Love, Life, Money, Beauty

“In real life, I'm just an actor. I play pretend. I tell stories.”

Kerry Washington (1977) American actress

Life

“What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as afield, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes—coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 147; abstract

Change, Dependency

“I wanted to be an actor or be a director since I was a very small child. I mean, my mother went into labor at a movie theater. There were, like, four movie theaters around us when I was growing up in Austin. Movies became my babysitter. I think I saw more films than I saw reality. Then I noticed something when I was in my late teens that really made my thinking shift in what I wanted to do with film. When I was watching a film as a young man, there would be a second or two when I drifted outside of myself. I noticed how for a moment, in the image and music and train of information, I was traveling through the film, leaving myself. And I knew that was something I wanted to do. I wanted to see how long I could make that feeling go on—if I could take someone outside themselves, outside their body for a minute, five minutes, maybe even 80 minutes, 90 minutes.”

Tobe Hooper (1943–2017) American film director, screenwriter and producer

Tobe Hooper Interview http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/tobe-hooper/#_ (July 14, 2014)

Music, Travel, Feeling, Thinking

“You can't be boring. Life is boring. The weather is boring. Actors must not be boring.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Obituary in New York Times

Life, Weather

“their actors choose a course of action depending on what their competitors do.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 33

Dependency

“People didn’t always follow their best interests. Human beings were distressingly bad at risk analysis, lousy with hidden motivations and neuroses, anything but the clean rational actors that economists or diplomats wanted so desperately to believe in, and diplomats had to go by capabilities, not intentions.”

Charles Stross book Iron Sunrise

Source: Iron Sunrise (2004), Chapter 15, “Preparing for Ghosts and Dogs” (pp. 245-246)

People, Motivation

“The interchanges I would have — of course, most of them were positive, and most people understand the movie, but there were plenty where the guys would want to put me in a headlock, or push me around a bit, or get into a little tussle with 'that tough guy from Back To The Future, because he’s not that tough after all'. Well, I’m not that tough after all, because I’m an actor; because it’s pretend! And I think that social media, the greater intimacy, maybe — I mean, part of it is false intimacy, but part of it’s real intimacy; you can go and see things about an actor, that’s kind of why I do the YouTube thing, to present, ‘this is me as a person’, that the audience, now, the pop cultural audience, is a more sophisticated audience and a more multi-faceted audience.”

Thomas F. Wilson (1959) actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist, stand-up comedian, and podcaster

How Back To The Future's Thomas F Wilson Overcame His Biggest Bully: Himself http://themusic.com.au/interviews/all/2017/06/15/thomas-f-wilson-supanova-comic-con-mitch-knox/ (June 15, 2017)

People, Guy, Understanding, Thinking

“As a child, I wanted to become a scientist, a magician, a poet, an architect, an illustrator, a sculptor, an actor, a philosopher, a photographer, a playwright and an animator. So by the time I was 13 or 14, I was convinced that it would be possible to a be of all of these if I made films.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"One-on-one with Ship of Theseus’ Anand Gandhi" at film army (3 September 2012) http://www.blog.filmarmy.ca/2012/09/11076/

Time, Animals

“I wanted to see that grizzly fucker. I wanted to see him flower. I wanted to see him blossom under the fact of love. I wanted to see where the sonnets came from. They came from the same pen of despair that wrote Timon of Athens— I wanted to see that guy. I wanted to see that guy with the sensibilities of a man that could create a body of work that would last century after century. I wanted to see that… I wanted to play that character. I loved the script. I mean, it was an incredibly well observed script about actors. That's why I thought it was so cool.”

Russell Crowe (1964) New Zealand-born Australian actor, film producer and musician

On Shakespeare In Love
GQ Interview (2005)

Love, Guy, Flowers, Despair

“The key insight of the approach is to consider that social action takes place in arenas, what may be called fields, domains, sectors, or organized social spaces… Fields contain collective actors who try to produce a system of domination in that space. To do so requires the production of a local culture that defines local social relations between actors.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The architecture of markets, 2001, p. 15

“I guess I'm hyper-self-conscious about people thinking that I'm egotistical, but there's a difference between being egotistical and knowing your value as a product and an actor. I know my value as a product, and I've divorced myself as a human from myself as a product.”

Tom Ford (1961) American fashion designer

Tom Ford Biography, Biography.com, A&E Television Networks, April 18, 2016 http://www.biography.com/people/tom-ford-5936,

People, Thinking

“Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness.”

Helen Hayes (1900–1993) actress

Source: On Reflection (1968), Ch. 1

“I've always been an actor. That's my job — I can be anything you want me to be.”

Sarah Jessica Parker (1965) American actress

Interview for Allure magazine, February 2008

“1. The standard neoclassical model the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand, the contention that market economies will ensure economic efficiency provides little guidance for the choice of economic systems, since once information imperfections (and the fact that markets are incomplete) are brought into the analysis, as surely they must be, there is no presumption that markets are efficient.
2. The Lange-Lerner-Taylor theorem, asserting the equivalence of market and market socialist economies, is based on a misguided view of the market, of the central problems of resource allocation, and (not surprisingly, given the first two failures) of how the market addresses those basic problems.
3. The neoclassical paradigm, through its incorrect characterization of the market economies and the central problems of resource allocation, provides a false sense of belief in the ability of market socialism to solve those resource allocation problems. To put it another way, if the neoclassical paradigm had provided a good description of the resource allocation problem and the market mechanism, then market socialism might well have been a success. The very criticisms of market socialism are themselves, to a large extent, criticisms of the neoclassical paradigm.
4. The central economic issues go beyond the traditional three questions posed at the beginning of every introductory text: What is to be produced? How is it to be produced? And for whom is it to be produced? Among the broader set of questions are: How should these resource allocation decisions be made? Who should make these decisions? How can those who are responsible for making these decisions be induced to make the right decisions? How are they to know what and how much information to acquire before making the decisions? How can the separate decisions of the millions of actors decision makers in the economy be coordinated?
5. At the core of the success of market economies are competition, markets, and decentralization. It is possible to have these, and for the government to still play a large role in the economy; indeed it may be necessary for the government to play a large role if competition is to be preserved. There has recently been extensive confusion over to what to attribute the East Asian miracle, the amazingly rapid growth in countries of this region during the past decade or two. Countries like Korea did make use of markets; they were very export oriented. And because markets played such an important role, some observers concluded that their success was convincing evidence of the power of markets alone. Yet in almost every case, government played a major role in these economies. While Wade may have put it too strongly when he entitled his book on the Taiwan success Governing the Market, there is little doubt that government intervened in the economy through the market.
6. At the core of the failure of the socialist experiment is not just the lack of property rights. Equally important were the problems arising from lack of incentives and competition, not only in the sphere of economics but also in politics. Even more important perhaps were problems of information. Hayek was right, of course, in emphasizing that the information problems facing a central planner were overwhelming. I am not sure that Hayek fully appreciated the range of information problems. If they were limited to the kinds of information problems that are at the center of the Arrow-Debreu model consumers conveying their preferences to firms, and scarcity values being communicated both to firms and consumers then market socialism would have worked. Lange would have been correct that by using prices, the socialist economy could "solve" the information problem just as well as the market could. But problems of information are broader.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Whither Socialism?

Source: Whither Socialism? (1994), Ch. 1 : The Theory of Socialism and the Power of Economic Ideas

Books, Way, Communication, Failure

“A person is known by the behavior he displays consistently. An experiment by Himmelfarb (1972) makes the important point that consistency in other persons' characterizations of an actor carries more weight if they are based on observations in dissimilar rather than similar situations. The other side of the coin is that a person's inconsistent behavior is attributed not to him but to circumstances.”

Harold Kelley (1921–2003) American psychologist & academic

Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 465

Behavior, Personality

“The problems of this country are not going to be solved by one actor or even 10 actors. The problems are far too big. On the screen we get poetic justice in three hours. Poetic justice doesn’t come in a lifetime.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Justice, Problem, Country

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

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

The Observer (1956)

Guy

“We are the actors and the audience as well, all of us. And the critics. We are also the critics.”

Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)

“I started making movies when I was 20. I started playing piano when I was about 3 years old, so I'm probably a musician first. But when I'm working on a movie, as an actor, I'm an actor - 100 percent. And when I'm on tour, I'm a musician 100 percent.”

Harry Connick, Jr. (1967) American singer, conductor, pianist, actor, and composer

The Costco Connection magazine interview, February 2007 http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200702/?pg=30

“I have learned so much from every director and actor I have ever worked with. I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the greats of our era and I was always cognizant of the fact that I was getting a free education every time at bat. I think you learn so much from just observing and being privy to the conversations that move the creative process forward.”

Erick Avari (1952) Indian actor

Playing Elrktra's Father and Encountering The Mummy: A Chat with Actor Erick Avari https://podcastingthemsoftly.com/2015/11/17/playing-elektras-father-and-encountering-the-mummy-a-chat-with-actor-erick-avari/ (November 17, 2015)

Education, Thinking, Learning, Time

“We afford automatic respect to superstar business moguls, politicians, and actors and to anyone flying around in a private jet, as if their accomplishments must reflect unique qualities not shared by those forced to eat commercial airline food. And we place too much confidence in the overly precise predictions of people - political pundits, financial experts, business consultants - who claim a track record demonstrating expertise.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 199-200

People, Food, Confidence, Business

“I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?"”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?"
Nobel Banquet Speech

Literature, Question, Thinking, Reading

“I’m constantly searching for right roles, trying to find what suits me the best. Once I find my metier, I’ll elaborate on that, polish my act and then move on. Some actors quickly find a genre they’re comfortable with and then they perfect it. Others do diverse things until they find what suits them. I’m doing the latter. I still haven’t found the role that I can do full justice to. I’m discovering myself as an actor.”

Abhishek Bachchan (1976) Indian actor

His "peer review" on acting, Deccan Chronicle (February 7, 2016), "Still haven’t found a role I can do justice to: Abhishek Bachchan" http://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/bollywood/070216/still-haven-t-found-a-role-i-can-do-justice-to-abhishek-bachchan.html

Justice, Search, Perfection

“The first consequence of the principle of bounded rationality is that the intended rationality of an actor requires him to construct a simplified model of the real situation in order to deal with it. He behaves rationally with respect to this model, and such behavior is not even approximately optimal with respect to the real world. To predict his behavior we must understand the way in which this simplified model is constructed, and its construction will certainly be related to his psychological properties as a perceiving, thinking, and learning animal.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1940s-1950s, Models of Man, 1957, p. 198; Cited in P. Slovic (1972, p. 2).

World, Way, Behavior, Optimism

“In the 8th Grade I found I had a voice for opera, so I followed that path a little, but my impulse has always been an actor, I have always liked cinema, and let's face it, opera singers are just bad actors! I didn't want to translate myself in that direction. My heroes were people like Spencer Tracy, Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Marvin, Richardson, Caine, all those sort.”

Robert Davi (1953) American actor and jazz singer

People

“(…) It is like taking food. All you can do is to bite off, chew and swallow. All else is unconscious and automatic. Listen, remember and understand – the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Mind
Source: I am That, P.156.

Food, Understanding

“Guide, Pyaasa — these are my films that can be remade with current actors. But the music and lyrics should not be changed. Because you cannot have a samba or bhangra beat for the seduction scene in Pyaasa…the beauty will be lost.”

Waheeda Rehman (1938) Indian actress

Quote, Grace personified: Waheeda Rehman

Beauty, Music, Change

“For twenty years I have been a writer and never before have I been in a milieu where every consideration came before literary consideration. And the opinion of anybody — minor actor, money accountant or baggage man — weighed equally or more heavily than that of the author. My disgust is like a cap of fire bearing down on my head. Why would an author with any pride submit to the impertinences of theatre people?”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Diary, during the production of Love and Libel (1960).

Money, People

“Systems can create consequences not intended by any other of their constituent actors.”

Joseph Nye (1937) American political scientist

Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 2, Origins of the Great Twentieth Century Conflicts, p. 34.

“I like to direct landscapes just as I like to direct actors and animals.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Animals

“The actor’s realm is that of the fleeting.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation

“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

Help, Parting

“One of the most influential figures in Philippine cinema, Da King touched the lives of many people even before running for the presidency in 2004. A prolific and outstanding actor who won the most best actor awards from FAMAS, he would not need his acting skills in 2004--as his genuine concern for Filipinos of all walks of life was apparent as he went around the country to campaign against a government that was as crooked and menacing as the villains he faced in his movies.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: Remembering the King

Life, People, Country

“[On the need for ultra high definition television] The problem with television isn't the number of horizontal scanning lines. It's the lines of dialogue spoken by the actors.”

Bran Ferren (1953) American technologist

Museums for the New Millennium: Proceedings, museumstudies.si.edu, 2017-03-12 http://museumstudies.si.edu/millennium/proceed8.htm,

Problem

“I wanted to play Rick. I was missing it. I’ve been waiting for the call from the studio since then. I love it. You get to do so much fun stuff, as an actor. You get to go to great places. They strap you into harnesses and throw you around. You have to look like you really know how to take care of business and beat people up, when you’re actually really a wimp. They’re great fun movies. There’s real appeal. Every kid or pinstripe executive in an elevator asks me, “When’s the next Mummy movie?””

Brendan Fraser (1968) Canadian American actor

I’m like, “I wanna know the same thing! Brendan Fraser Interview – The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor http://collider.com/brendan-fraser-interview-the-mummy-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor/ (July 31, 2008)

Love, People, Business, Waiting

“No outsider can imagine the stupidity, blustering hysteria, authoritarianism, and paralyzing boredom of shooting a flick for Billy Wilder. The so-called "actors" are simply trained poodles who sit up on their hind legs and jump through hoops. I thought the insanity would never stop. But I got a shitload of money.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On filming Buddy Buddy. p. 299
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

Money, Stupidity, Imagination, Training

“I figured he'd be like a genius, because he is. He’s very, very subtle and nuanced. It’s very much in the eyes. That’s how it is in real life. He’s such a great actor. I was just amazed that I got the chance to work with him.”

Alison Lohman (1979) American actress

Of Nicholas Cage.
Interview with Rebecca Murray

Life, Chance

“No, I thing that's the worst f**king thing. I mean, can you imagine having to get up at 4am and sit in a trailer while someone puts makeup on you? Then stand in front of a camera and say the same lines 60 times. I feel sorry for actors and I never want to do it. I stood in front of a camera in Singles and that's about it.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked if he ever considered acting as a career ** Kerrang! Magazine, March 1, 1997 http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/articles/kerr_3-1-97.shtml, Soundgarden Era

Feeling, Imagination, Time

Quotes about actor page 2

Quotes about actor
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