Actors and Acting

A character actor is one who cannot act and therefore makes an elaborate study of disguise and stage tricks by which acting can be grotesquely simulated.
- Attributed to George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Irish playwright.

Acting in English...I'm like a blind man. When you can't see, you develop other senses. In one sense I am blind, but other faculties develop by way of compensation: the sense of hearing, of morbid curiosity, of tolerance. These are the ways you communicate if you don't speak the language.
- Gérard Depardieu (1948 - ), French actor.
The Observer (London)

Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity.
- Marlon Brando (1924 - ), U.S. actor.

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.
- Attributed to Katharine Hepburn (1907 - ), U.S. actor.

Acting is therefore the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all.
- George Moore (1852 - 1933), Irish writer.
Impressions and Opinions, "Mummer-Worship"

Acting, of course, is a good way to keep fit as you are on your feet walking around the rehearsal room all day.
- Antony Sher (1949 - ), South African-born British actor.
The Sunday Times (London)

Actors should be treated like cattle.
- Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)
British-born U.S. film director.Said in clarification of a remark attributed to him, "Actors are like cattle."

Ah, every day dear Herbert becomes de plus en plus Oscarié. It is a wonderful case of nature imitating art.
- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), Irish poet, playwright, and wit.Referring to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's unconscious adoption of some of the mannerisms of a character he was playing in one of Wilde's plays.

Ah, the sex thing. I'm glad that part of my life is over.
- Attributed to Greta Garbo (1905 - 1990), Swedish-born U.S. film actor.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
- Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor and director.
My Autobiography

All people are actors, but where do we find them a repertoire?
- Stanislaw Lec (1909 - 1966), Polish writer.

All Stanislavsky ever said was: "Avoid generalities."
- Anthony Hopkins (1937 - ), Welsh stage and motion picture actor.Referring to Konstantin Stanislavsky.
Films Illustrated

An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal—falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox.
- Attributed to François Truffaut (1932 - 1984), French film director and screenwriter.

An actor is something less than a man while an actress is something more than a woman.
- Richard Burton (1925 - 1984), Welsh-born British actor.

An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.
- Marlon Brando (1924 - ), U.S. actor.
Observer (London), "Sayings of the Year"

An actress's life is so transitory—suddenly you're a building!
- Helen Hayes (1900 - 1993), U.S. actor.Referring to the Broadway theater named in her honor.
Remark on NBC television

Any little pinhead who makes one picture is called a "star."
- Attributed to Humphrey Bogart (1899 - 1957), U.S. actor."Picture" in this context refers to a motion picture.

Bergman taught me how little you can do, rather than how much.
- Liv Ullmann (1939 - ), Japanese-born Norwegian actor and director.Referring to Ingmar Bergman.
Time

Blank face is fine. The computer works faster than the brain, don't forget. The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact, is bad acting.
- Anthony Hopkins (1937 - ), Welsh stage and motion picture actor.
Knave

Bogart's a helluva nice guy till 11.30 p.m. After that he thinks he's Bogart.
- Dave Chausen, U.S. restaurateur.Referring to Humphrey Bogart.

But the Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted...the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it must have love scenes and a happy ending.
- Attributed to Charles Lamb (1775 - 1834), British essayist.Referring to Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, and the late 17th-century and 18th-century trend to revise Shakespeare's tragedies by giving them happy endings. The most distinguished proponent of this was poet laureate Nahum Tate, whose widely performed Tate's Lear (a revision of King Lear), ended with Cordelia marrying Edgar.

Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.
- Anonymous, Referring to Fred Astaire's first screen test.
MGM studio report

Clark Gable has the best ears of our lives.
- Attributed to Milton Berle (1908 - 2002), U.S. film and television entertainer.

Directing her was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.
- Attributed to Otto Preminger (1906 - 1986), Austrian-born U.S. film director and producer.Referring to directing Marilyn Monroe.

Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington
- Noel Coward (1899 - 1973), British dramatist, actor, and songwriter.Song title.

Even the youngest of us will know, in fifty years' time, exactly what we mean by "a very Noel Coward sort of person."
- Kenneth Tynan (1927 - 1980), British theater critic.
Curtains

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.
- Attributed to Orson Welles (1915 - 1985), U.S. actor, director, producer, and writer.

Every actor should direct at least once. It gives you a tolerance, an understanding of the problems involved in making a film. In fact every director should act.
- Clint Eastwood (1930 - ), U.S. film actor and director.
Playboy

Everyone denies I am a genius—but nobody ever called me one!
- Attributed to Orson Welles (1915 - 1985), U.S. actor, director, producer, and writer.

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.
- Ethel Barrymore (1879 - 1959), U.S. actor.

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture.
- Sarah Bernhardt (1844 - 1923), French actor and theater manager.
Memories of My Life

Funny without being vulgar.
- Attributed to W. S. Gilbert (1836 - 1911), British librettist and playwright, 1893.Referring to Sir Henry Irving's Hamlet.

Garrick was pure gold beat out into thin leaf.
- Attributed to James Boswell (1740 - 1795), Scottish lawyer and biographer.Referring to David Garrick.

Gimme a viskey. Ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby.
- Greta Garbo (1905 - 1990), Swedish-born U.S. film actor.
Anna Christie

HAMLET O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), English poet and playwright.
Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2

HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and—as I may say—whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), English poet and playwright.
Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2

Have patience with the jealousies and petulance of actors, for their hour is their eternity.
- Attributed to Richard Garnett (1835 - 1906), British writer and librarian.

He had the metabolism of a falcon. He burnt ideas so quickly...He'd start walking up and down, smoking his cigar and, in a minute, he'd be changing it into another idea...in the end he was telling a different story and possible film.
- Fernando Rey (1915 - 1994), Spanish film actor.Referring to Orson Welles.
Knave

He was a star who had no pretensions, something rare in an actor...He was a generous man and he had beautiful manners. He was also Bohemian and wild, which was fun.
- Attributed to John Gielgud (1904 - 2000), British actor and producer.Referring to the British actor Trevor Howard.

He's the kind of guy that when he dies, he gives God a bad time for making him bald.
- Marlon Brando (1924 - ), U.S. actor.Referring to Frank Sinatra.
Daily Mail (London)

His ears make him look like a taxi-cab with both doors open.
- Attributed to Howard Hughes (1905 - 1976), U.S. business executive, pilot, and film producer.Referring to Clark Gable.

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.
- Marilyn Monroe (1926 - 1962), U.S. film actor.

Humphrey Bogart was a brilliant smoker. He taught generations how to hold a cigarette, how to inhale, how to squint through the smoke. But as a kisser, Bogart set an awful example. His mouth addressed a woman's lips with the quivering nibble of a horse closing in on an apple.
- Lance Morrow, U.S. journalist.
Fishing in the Tiber, "Changing the Gestures of Passion"

I am, as you may observe, acting again...Our theatre is going on, to the astonishment of everybody. Very few of the actors are paid, and all are vowing to withdraw themselves: yet still we go on. Sheridan is certainly omnipotent.
- Sarah Siddons (1755 - 1831), English actor.
Letter

I appreciate teamwork. I don't like a one-man show. I'm an interpreter, a sort of tool—I don't mean an object. The right tool is quite essential. Try pounding a nail in with a screwdriver.
- Attributed to Gérard Depardieu (1948 - ), French actor.Publicity release for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990).

I cast actors from rock because they're sensitive to what people want. They're performers. Their antennas are screwed on right. They don't mind getting right in there and having a go at the truth.
- Oshima Nagisa (1932 - ), Japanese film director.
Photoplay

I decided to use the masks so I didn't have the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.
- David Bowie (1947 - ), British pop singer.Referring to his use of stage personae in his concert performances.

I do not act in the play; I am action.
- Mou Sen, Chinese theater director.

I don't go around saying: "Hello, did you know I'm the new Olivier?"
- Kenneth Charles Branagh (1960 - ), Irish-born British actor and film director.
Newsweek

I enjoy being a highly overpaid actor.
- Attributed to Roger Moore (1927 - ), British film actor.

I have often heard it said, That an actor can instruct a priest.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), German poet, playwright, and scientist.
Faust

I left the screen because I didn't want what happened to Chaplin to happen to me. When he discarded the little tramp, the little tramp turned around and killed him.
- Mary Pickford (1893 - 1979), U.S. actor and film producer.Referring to Charlie Chaplin.

I love the camera and it loves me. Well, not very much sometimes. But we're good friends.
- Attributed to Dirk Bogarde (1921 - 1999), British actor and novelist.

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.
- Frank Capra (1897 - 1991), Italian-born U.S. film director.
Cinemas No 12, Antenne 2 (French television)

I never accept lengthy film roles nowadays, because I am always so afraid I will die in the middle of shooting and cause such awful problems.
- John Gielgud (1904 - 2000), British actor and producer.
The Independent (London)

I never realized before that Albert married beneath him.
- Noel Coward (1899 - 1973), British dramatist, actor, and songwriter, 1964.After seeing a certain actor in the role of Queen Victoria.

I never said, "I want to be alone." I only said, "I want to be left alone." There is all the difference.
- Greta Garbo (1905 - 1990), Swedish-born U.S. film actor, 1955.

I never use professional actors nowadays...For in my opinion the moment actors assume certain expressions, the result cannot be true cinema, only filmed theater.
- Robert Bresson (1907 - ), French filmmaker.
Montreal Star, Interview

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.
- Judy Garland (1922 - 1969), U.S. film actor and singer.
The Observer (London), "Sayings of the Week"

I went into show business strictly from hunger. Starvation helps to turn you into a good actor, I guess.
- James Cagney (1899 - 1986)
U.S. actor.

I would just like to mention Robert Houdini who in the eighteenth century invented the vanishing bird-cage trick and the theater matinée—may he rot and perish. Good afternoon.
- Orson Welles (1915 - 1985), U.S. actor, director, producer, and writer.Addressing the audience at the end of a matinée performance.

If it's a good script, I'll do it. And if it's a bad script, and they pay me enough, I'll do it.
- George Burns (1896 - 1996), U.S. comedian and actor.

If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am.
- Attributed to Peter Sellers (1925 - 1980), British comic actor.

If you have a good part in a hit, your whole life will change, you will become a success, and you will pay a price for that success. You will play the same part all the rest of your life under different names.
- George Abbott (1887 - 1995), U.S. director, producer, playwright, and actor.

I'm an actor. An actress is someone who wears feather boas.
- Sigourney Weaver (1949 - ), U.S. actor.
American Film

I'm not interested in making an assessment of myself and stripping myself for the general public to view.
- Marlon Brando (1924 - ), U.S. actor.

In a non-permissive age, she made remarkable inroads against the taboos of her day, and did so without even lowering her neckline.
- Leslie Halliwell (1929 - 1989), British film critic.Referring to Mae West.
The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes

In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and the rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words, we are continually changing the score.
- Ralph Richardson (1902 - 1983), British actor.
Observer Magazine (London), "Tynan on Richardson"

It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor.
- Attributed to John Ford (1894 - 1973), U.S. filmmaker.

It is the strength to resist the extraneous that renders acting powerful and beautiful.
- David Mamet (1947 - ), U.S. writer and film director.
A Whore's Profession: Notes and Essays, "Some Lessons from Television"

It sounds pompous, but it's the nearest thing I can do to being God. I'm trying to create human beings and so does He.
- Attributed to Rod Steiger (1925 - ), U.S. film actor.

It was like going to the dentist making a picture with her. It was hell at the time, but after it was all over, it was wonderful.
- Billy Wilder (1906 - 2002), Austrian-born U.S. film director and screenwriter.Referring to Marilyn Monroe.

It's not whether you really cry. It's whether the audience thinks you are crying.
- Attributed to Ingrid Bergman (1915 - 1982), Swedish actor.

It's one of the tragic ironies of the theater that only one man in it can count on steady work—the night watchman.
- Tallulah Bankhead (1903 - 1968), U.S. actor.
Tallulah

It's very hard for an actor to open his gob without whatever he says sounding risible. If you even whisper a murmur of complaint, you're labelled a po-faced git who can't see the funny side of things.
- Attributed to Kenneth Charles Branagh (1960 - ), Irish-born British actor and film director.

I've made so many movies playing a hooker that they don't pay me in the regular way any more. They leave it on the dresser.
- Shirley MacLaine (1934 - ), U.S. actor, dancer, and author.
Out on a Limb

I've played everything but the harp.
- Attributed to Lionel Barrymore (1878 - 1954), U.S. actor.When asked what words he would like engraved on his tombstone.

James Dean was the strongest influence on any actor that ever stepped in front of the camera. Ever.
- Martin Sheen (1940 - ), U.S. actor.

John Wayne is dead.
The hell I am.
- Anonymous, Inscription on a wall in Bermondsey Antique Market, London, together with a ghostly denial.
Evening Standard (London)

Just say your lines and don't trip over the furniture.
- Noel Coward (1899 - 1973), British dramatist, actor, and songwriter.Advice for actors.
Speech, Gallery First-Nighters' Club

Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don't mind.
- Attributed to Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853 - 1917), British actor and theatrical impresario.Directing a group of actors.

Learn your lines, don't bump into the furniture—and in kissing scenes, keep your mouth closed.
- Ronald Reagan (1911 - ), U.S. president and actor.Acting tips.
Films Illustrated

Many people have delusions of grandeur but you're deluded by triviality.
- Eugène Ionesco (1909 - 1994), Romanian-born French playwright.
Exit the King

More of an act than an actress.
- Anonymous, Referring to Tallulah Bankhead.

Mr. Liveright, I understand your concern but the performance is not until a week from tomorrow ev-e-nink…yes, we save the atmosphere for a week from tomorrow ev-e-nink.
- Bela Lugosi (1884 - 1956), Hungarian-born U.S. film actor.Said to Horace Liveright, producer of the stage version Dracula, a week before the opening night, which turned out to be a resounding success.
Remark

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.
- Barbara Stanwyck (1907 - 1990), U.S. film actor.
Interview (Hedda Hopper)

Never meddle with play-actors, for they're a favoured race.
- Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616), Spanish novelist and dramatist.
Don Quixote

Never work with animals or children.
- Anonymous, Show business maxim.

No more than any menopausal woman of 53 who lives alone and whose contract with the Royal Shakespeare Company is going to end in July.
- Jane Lapotaire (1944 - ), British actor.Reply to the doctor who asked her if she was under stress.
Guardian (London)

No! Not at any price…When I am through with this picture I hope never to hear of Dracula again. I cannot stand it…I do not intend that it shall possess me. No one knows what I suffer from the role.
- Bela Lugosi (1884 - 1956), Hungarian-born U.S. film actor.In response to a request by his agent that he play the Dracula role for 16 weeks in the theater.

Nobody ever dominated a theater like Jolson. And nobody was ever as quick to admit it as he was, either.
- George Burns (1896 - 1996), U.S. comedian and actor.Referring to Al Jolson.
All My Best Friends

People say that Bob allows you the most enormous freedom and that they're creating their own part, which is an enormous lie. Everyone's lining up in the exact direction he wants them to go...you're the same marionette you are with other directors.
- Geraldine Chaplin (1944 - ), U.S. actor.Referring to Robert Altman.
Crowdaddy, Interview

Remember you are a star. Never go across the alley even to dump garbage unless you are dressed to the teeth.
- Cecil B. De Mille (1881 - 1959), U.S. film producer and director

Romance on the High Seas was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin.
- Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972), U.S. pianist and actor.
Memoirs of an Amnesiac

She looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth—or anywhere else.
- Attributed to Elsa Lanchester (1902 - 1986), British-born U.S. actor.Referring to Maureen O'Hara.

She stole everything but the cameras.
- Attributed to George Raft (1895 - 1980), U.S. actor.Referring to Mae West.

She's not going to walk in here...and turn it into a Golden Sanitary Towel Award Presentation.
- John Osborne (1929 - 1994), British playwright and screenwriter.
The Hotel in Amsterdam

So we think of Marilyn who was every man's love affair with America, Marilyn Monroe who was blonde and beautiful and had a sweet little rinky-dink of a voice and all the cleanliness of all the clean American backyards.
- Norman Mailer (1923 - ), U.S. novelist and journalist.
Marilyn

Some of the greatest love affairs I've known involved one actor—unassisted.
- Attributed to Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933), U.S. playwright.

Sorry am I to say I have often observed, that I have performed worst when I most ardently wished to do better than ever.
- Sarah Siddons (1755 - 1831), English actor.
Letter to Rev. Whalley

Take that black box away. I can't act in front of it.
- Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853 - 1917), British actor and theatrical impresario.Referring to the presence of the camera while performing in a silent movie.
Remark

The actor must have no personality at all...You must give the impression that the scenario was never written. That you're inventing it at the precise moment you act it—an elaborate kind of improvisation.
- Jean-Louis Trintignant (1931 - ), French actor.
Films Illustrated, Interview

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.
- Ralph Richardson (1902 - 1983), British actor.
The Observer (London)

The buzz subsides. I have come on stage.
Leaning in an open door
I'll try to detect from the echo
What the future has in store.
- Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960), Russian poet and novelist.
"Hamlet"

The Face of Venus, the Brains of Minerva and the Hide of a rhinoceros.
- Ethel Barrymore (1879 - 1959), U.S. actor.Describing requirements to be a successful actress.

The future winds no garlands for the actor.
- Friedrich von Schiller (1759 - 1805), German poet, playwright and historian.
The Robbers and Wallenstein

The great ones have a little something extra. To love of the theater, to intelligence and willingness to work, they bring a personal incandescence that cannot be acquired or imitated.
- Brooks Atkinson (1894 - 1984), U.S. drama critic and journalist.Referring to actors.
Broadway

The less you do, the better you do it.
- Marcello Mastroianni (1924 - 1996), Italian film actor.Advice on being a successful actor.
Il Corriere della Sera, Interview

The monster was indeed the best friend I could ever have.
- Boris Karloff (1887 - 1969)
British-born U.S. actor.Referring to his success in the movie role of Frankenstein's monster.

The only thing you owe the public is a good performance.
- Attributed to Humphrey Bogart (1899 - 1957)
U.S. actor.

The only time I really open up is onstage. The mask of performing gives it to me, a place where I hide myself then I can reveal myself.
- Jim Morrison (1943 - 1971), U.S. rock singer and songwriter.

The role of Othello is the biggest strain of all.
- Attributed to Laurence Olivier (1907 - 1989), British actor and director.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.
- Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor and director.
My Autobiography

The second you step out of the confines of the personality the public has set up for you, they get incensed. Public reaction tends to keep actors as personalities instead of allowing them to act. It's a very corrupting influence.
- Paul Newman (1925 - ), U.S. film actor.
Photoplay

The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
- Attributed to George Burns (1896 - 1996), U.S. comedian and actor.

The subtlest acting I've ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don't or trying to hide something. It's something everyone learns at an early age.
- Marlon Brando (1924 - ), U.S. actor.
Newsweek (BBC radio

The Zulus know Chaplin better than Arkansas knows Garbo.
- Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor and director.
Atlantic Monthly

Theatre director: a person engaged by the management to conceal the fact that the players cannot act.
- Attributed to James Agate (1877 - 1947), British theater critic.

There are those who say I cannot act. And they are right. I cannot act. I am too real.
- Nicol Williamson (1938 - ), British actor.
The Independent on Sunday (London)

There used to be a me behind the mask, but I had it surgically removed.
- Attributed to Peter Sellers (1925 - 1980), British comic actor.

There's no such thing as The Method. The term method-acting is so much nonsense. There are many methods...My father merely used a method of teaching based on the ideas of Stanislavsky—self-discipline, how to think out a role and use imagination.
- Attributed to Susan Strasberg (1938 - ), U.S. actor.Referring to her father, Lee Strasberg, who was the leading teacher of so-called method-acting, in a publicity release for Scream of Fear (1961).

This whole thing is like a cross between a very severe virus and getting married.
- Attributed to Emma Thompson (1959 - ), British actor, 1992.Remark upon receiving the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actress for her performance in Howards End (1991).

Those two fellows we created, they were very very nice people...One of the reasons why people like us, I guess, is because they feel superior to us.
- Oliver Hardy (1892 - 1957), U.S. film comedian.Referring to the comic duo he created with Stan Laurel.

Timing! My mother gave me that. I was born with it. I don't think you can teach a person to act.
- Attributed to Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor and director.

To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834), British poet.Referring to Edmund Kean.
Table Talk

Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify.
- Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977), British actor and director.
Monsieur Verdoux

When Buñuel was casting Viridiana he wanted me: "I saw him as a corpse in a film and he was wonderful." So Buñuellian!
- Fernando Rey (1915 - 1994), Spanish film actor.
Knave

When I pass my name in such large letters I blush, but at the same time instinctively raise my hat.
- Attributed to Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853 - 1917), British actor and theatrical impresario.

When you get the personality, you don't need the nudity.
- Mae West (1892 - 1980), U.S. actor and comedian.
The Observer (London), "Sayings of the Week"

When you're working for a good director, you become subjective and submissive. You become his concubine. All that you seek is his pleasure.
- Donald Sutherland (1934 - ), Canadian-born U.S. film actor.

Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone;
There he succeeds, the merit's all his own.
- Charles Churchill (1731 - 1764), British poet.Referring to the actor Thomas Sheridan.
The Rosciad

Whether the film is good or bad Brando is always compulsive viewing, like Sydney Greenstreet, the vulgarian of all time, or Peter Lorre, or even Bette Davis daring to do Baby Jane.
- Attributed to Anthony Hopkins (1937 - ), Welsh stage and motion picture actor.Referring to Marlon Brando.

Wonderful women! Have you ever thought how much we all, and women especially, owe to Shakespeare for his vindication of women in these fearless, high-spirited, resolute and intelligent heroines?
- Ellen Terry (1847 - 1928), British actor.
Four Lectures on Shakespeare, "The Triumphant Women"

Words can be deceitful, but pantomime necessarily is simple, clear and direct.
- Marcel Marceau (1923 - ), French mime artist.
Theater Arts

You look at Harrison Ford and you listen. He looks like he's carrying a gun, even if he isn't.
- Carrie Fisher (1956 - ), U.S. actor and writer.
Vanity Fair