Acting Quotes - Page 146

Meryl Streep is an acting machine in the same sense that a shark is a killing machine.

It's easy for people to mistake most musicians as living the easy life. It takes a while to get to that point. I'm sure it's like that for acting and television.

Around 2001, I started analyzing lesbians. I started to realize that even really butch-acting or -dressing women still had a strong female identity that I never had.

You give, actually, what you have in your inner world through your emotion and feeling. That's what you can give; it's not so much about "acting" in a sense of playing something that's very different to you.

It was quite strange, because it's quite different from singing, although it's quite natural because you're used to performing or acting on stage.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

I studied acting at Boston University. I was in the theater department there. Somewhere in there I decided that wasn't what I was going to do and I went to the B.F.A. film program at N.Y.U.

Acting is never really effortless, at least not for me. It requires a massive amount of work. But, there's definitely an added level of having to just create the whole thing again, every time. It's also a very exciting thing, to do that.

For me, obviously anything that reduces the amount of acting required and makes the process more of an experience, rather than having to synthesize, is incredibly helpful. There were definitely some hardships and some challenges, but eventually all of those hardships and challenges had a positive effect on the work.

I think with acting, since I became an actor... I, as a person, have become more confident and I have really come out of my shell somewhat... and back to myself, you know.

I've scammed so many people throughout my whole life who never learned my true identity until I started acting.

Acting is the easiest money you'll ever make in your life, and directing is probably the hardest money.

I didn't go to film school, I went to acting school.

Is it a stale remark to say that I have constantly found the interest excited at a playhouse to bear an exact inverse proportion to the price paid for admission?

I didn't want to break with my family. I wasn't about to make waves. But I had this feeling I wanted to do something that I liked to do. Acting's what I liked to do most. There must have been a moment when I felt, 'Oh, my God, I like this and what am I going to do about it?

Good acting is thinking in front of the camera. I just do that and apply a sense of humor to it. You have to trust the audience to get it.

I think I've done 200 plays and 125 movies, so I've been very lucky to have made a living at acting.

Dancing came easy for me. Acting came hard.

Acting is ephemeral. You can't hang it on a wall. You can't throw it off. And you can't bring it out of a closet. It's there one night and it's gone the next, at least with stage acting anyhow.

I would rather do a play because it's instantaneous. You go on the stage, and you know whether it's happening or not. Somebody asked me 'What is acting?' And I said, 'Acting is listening.' And if you ain't listening, nobody's listening.

I want a career and the thing is you really have to love acting. I didn't just fall into it and it wasn't just something I was good at. I've had to really work at this. I've had to fall on my face time and time again. You get 'no' 99 per cent of the time and a 'yes' just once.

Laurence [Fishburne] is a great example of how to communicate to the audience as you're acting with another actor.

When someone's acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you're watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes.

Anyone who goes on the stage is a show-off, aren't they? Acting's weird.

I'm a bit of a fraud, really, as I didn't study acting at a drama school.