My grandparents – both of my mother’s parents – were actors, and they ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company, through the town of Reading, where I come from.

If you’re not still learning and growing as an actor, then you have no backbone and no career.

I’ve always been an emotional person, and I think it helps me as an actor.

The secret of being a great actor is a love of food.

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s just not acting. It’s lying.

I think it’s an actor’s responsibility to change every time. Not only for himself and the people he’s working with, but for the audience. If you just go out and deliver the same dish every time, it’s meat loaf again, you’d get bored. I’d get bored.

My stepdad provided me with an amazing childhood. I played outside like a normal kid, I rode my bike, I walked to school, but the happiest times were when I was acting.

I’m an actor. I can do whatever I want. As an actor, not everything has to be the most obvious choice. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is to defy expectations.

To have a director that loves his actors is something that you can see in the film and in the fruits of that labor. You can see that translated in the film. When you watch this movie, you can see a director who loves his actors, and it shines through the movie, in my eyes.

When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‘artist’ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

My love for sports will never die. I love martial arts and I want to promote it in whichever way I can. I am a fighter first, then an actor.

I’m an athletic actor. I’m known for my action; I’m a guy who does my own stunts on screen.

I always call myself a stuntman first and then an actor.

I’ve done all kinds of cool things as an actor – I’ve jumped out of helicopters and done some daring stunts and played baseball in a professional stadium, but none of it means anything compared to being somebody’s daddy.

A lot of the artists that are coming out right now are sticking to the formula of guns, drugs, money, all that other stuff. I’m not from the ‘hood, I’ve never been arrested, I never shot anybody, I never sold drugs.

To create something memorable, you must first dare to be different.

Honestly, I look at the project and I look at the people attached and I look at the director. If it’s a role that I feel will help me, as an actor, then I’ll definitely take it.

I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am.

As an actor I kind of do. I started out doing voice overs in the mid 80s when I was in grad school.

But all actors go through the process, it’s hit and miss, you have achievement and failure

Some of the best dramatic actors have started in comedy.

I tell people all the time, as I was going through my process of being a comedian or being an actor and a writer at ‘SNL,’ I tell people that everything you do is all a piece of your puzzle to determine where you’re going to end up at.

The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history

I feel that, as an actor, you’re constantly working to become better, which I love, but with painting, I can fail on my own terms. There’s a freedom in that, so that’s why I love to paint.

I believe that I’m an actor to this day because of ‘Star Wars.’ I saw ‘Star Wars’ as a child, and I was completely enamored by it.

To be famous, you’ve to do big movies but to improve yourself as an actor and for your well-being, you need to do smaller films so that you will learn through them

I like the rapid stage of TV. I’m the type of actor who likes the fast pace. I don’t have the patience to wait for 50 million takes.

In a world of scripts and stages, authenticity is the actor’s greatest gift to the audience

There’s an art to finding the truth in fiction, and that’s the actor’s ultimate quest.

To have a part that is written for you certainly helps an actor.

I like pretending. I’m an actor.

Actors between plays are like ghosts looking for bodies to inhabit.

I’ve been aware of the work I do as an actor being directorial in feel.

I’m not sure I’m the sort of actor people are hugely interested in finding out an awful lot about.

I remember my first actor that I really, really fell in love with was Tom Hanks. I suppose when I was growing up and getting more serious about acting, at that point, he was the biggest actor in the world.

I remember my first actor that I really, really fell in love with was Tom Hanks. I suppose when I was growing up and getting more serious about acting, at that point, he was the biggest actor in the world.

I don’t even think of myself as particularly good looking, and not at all a typical kind of Hollywood leading man sort of actor.

A lot of people when they make movies, the actors act like it’s their journey and that everyone is on the set to facilitate their journey and the whole thing is set up that way – they ask if you want anything.

My mom had me when she was 19 or 20. And my father was 22 or something. They were working on whatever they could, both of them aiming to be actors in theater.

As actors, we don’t shy away from saying, ‘I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to meet girls.’ Directors cannot say the same thing.

I was brought up the Mexican way, where actors are paid very little and every part you take is an act of faith. If people respect that, then great.

All my characters are me. I’m not a good enough actor to become a character. I hear about actors who become the role and I think ‘I wonder what that feels like.’ Because for me, they’re all me.

I never made the choice to be an actor. It just sort of happened to me when I was a kid, for whatever reasons that are irrelevant in this moment.

I don’t know if I’d say I feel green, but I’m getting to know myself as an actor now in a way that I never did as a kid.

The early part of my career was the 1990s, and I was living in New York working as an actor. It was the world I was in. A lot of companies had a great deal of money.

It is their job as actors to play different people. Should only a doctor play a doctor’s role?

I go for actors who do precisely what is expected of them.

I generally won’t give importance to language barriers. If I feel an actor will fit into the role I will approach.

I’m not a professional politician. I’m not a professional anything. I’m an actor.

You don’t know how many times I’ve sat in the theatre with a big thing of popcorn and been like, ‘Oh, that actor did that movie for a paycheck. He didn’t care.’ And I’m not going to do that.

The diamond is a stage, and every player is an actor in the grand drama of baseball.

In 1913, the noted German actor and director Paul Wegener was making a film in Prague when he heard the legend of Rabbi Loew, who created a golem to protect the inhabitants of the Prague ghetto from persecution.

As an actor, there is always an opportunity to learn from the other actors you work with.

The life of an actor is very hard irrespective of the continent you are in. It is doubly hard when you are only eligible for minority roles.

I’ve dubbed for my roles in Hindi, English, and Italian. Therefore, I’m used to the process. But, dubbing is hard, especially when you are dubbing for a prominent actor.

Being an international actor, I always had to keep moving.

I’m an international actor, but at the same time, I’m also a Bollywood actor, even though most of my career has been abroad. However, I’ve always kept in touch with Hindi cinema.

Actors are limited by their appearance and while it has cost me some roles, it has got me some very important roles too.

My father was a very popular singer and stage actor during his time, in the 1950s. But he didn’t take any formal lessons in music, which was probably why he insisted I study music so I could get a proper base and build a strong career in it.

I like actors who like to change and transform to other things.

Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who’s very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real

Voice actors I used to know who were starting out in comedy were guys who did a lot of voices. They were usually comedy actors who developed their comedy by doing tons of impressions and voices that were usually very funny. And I never did any of that, so that’s, I guess, why I don’t consider myself a voice actor.

I wasn’t classically trained as an actor; I wasn’t pursuing standup comedy. I really came into it through the back door. And there was a benefit to that, I think, because I wasn’t pressing; I wasn’t pushing.

I like directors who have worked as actors. They know the experience.

For me as an actor because I’ve been at it so long, it becomes much harder to watch movies because you really see the seams of everything.

I’ve been an actor now since freshman year of college, so it’s 11 or 12 years.

When you’re still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant – Gene Hackman is another – at being and allowing the audience to just do the work.

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.

You’re in a scene with Laura Linney or Oliver Platt or John Hickey or Alan Alda and these amazing actors and actresses, and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I haven’t even started; I’m nothing compared to these people!

Being an actor is wonderful and it’s a lot of fun, but eventually you look old and you can’t fit this or that. It’s important to have other skills, be able to do other things, and to really learn how this business works and what it thrives on.

I was born to stand out. I don’t care whether or not people will find me attractive on screen. That’s not why I became an actor. I know that more and more with each new role.

There’s a personal me, there’s an actor me and there’s a star me.

C’mon, we’re actors. We love the attention. We love the applause. We sure don’t like to be rejected.

I used to say that I wanted someone cute and nice, an actor too, so he’d get it. But now I think it would be good for me to date someone who’s not in the business.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

You hear about actors being late and all that sort of stuff, but you never find that with an actor who’s directed, because an actor who’s directed understands all the problems your production is going through.

I guess any movie actor can become a role model for audiences out there who enjoy him.

Actors know, with me they aren’t going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

I never wanted to become an actor. I always wanted to be a farmer and dream of owning half an acre of agriculture land.

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.

I just turned 40, and it’s weird to think that I’ve been doing this almost my whole life. I was a child actor and then didn’t do it through junior high and high school, then started up again in my late teens doing ‘Young and the Restless.’ Dabbled with school, went back to college, played around. I think I was doing Pleasantville at 23.

I surf; I skateboard. I’m from Southern California. I never thought I was going to be an actor. And to be honest with you, I never really thought of myself as one.

I’m into being a dad, that’s where my focus is most of the time. I’m an actor that’s my job, but it’s not my life. I have a lot of other interests too.

The problem with prostitutes is, what if you actually like somebody you meet in that situation? Where do you go from there? What do you do?

I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen.

My sexual nature is irrelevant. I’m an actor, I play roles, fragments of myself.

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

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

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

I’m not the type of actor who is trying to do a whole bunch of different shit, you know what I mean?

I’ve really had good luck working with younger actors. Every younger actor that I have worked with has always been really on top of their game and fascinating to watch.

One of the great bonuses of being a film actor is that I get to go to different places, meet inspiring people and learn different things. So all those details add up.

I love working with younger actors because they always come into the game full of energy and ideas that challenge me and keep me learning and stimulated.

Idris Elba is a grand actor. He’s very larger than life; he’s bigger than life.

Actors work with their look. I come from the Lon Chaney Sr. school of acting. I’ll wear wigs, I’ll wear nose pieces, I’ll wear green contact lenses in my eyes. I’ll do whatever I need to do to create a character.

I’ve always believed that the greatest actors are the ones that have the voices that are imitable.

I’m not a trained actor. I’m someone who is autodidactic and learned on my own.

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn’t dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

Good actors I’ve worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.

Real life, my movie don’t come with actors.

Actors spend a great deal of their time making films. And that doesn’t mean that they’re not educated. But we haven’t gone to law school and we’re not experts on policy. We’re just people with a platform and an opinion. But that should never be enough, in my opinion, to be political.

As a director, I hoped that I was able to help the actors by giving them the space and the respect they need and the trust. I gave them what I always felt I needed when I was working.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It’s just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

The bottom line is, when it comes to an actor and his performance, whether nominated or not, it simply has to do with whether that character had enough resonance with the audience. You know, to the filmgoers. And that something that you can’t control.

I don’t watch anything of mine much. I haven’t gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I’d be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

Actors cannot work against each other. It’s totally impossible.

I realize that I do not change the course of history. I am an actor, I do a movie, that’s the end of it. You have to realize that we are just clowns for hire.

It’s what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That’s all and that’s the hardest thing.

That’s your job as the actor, to understand the human part of the character, to make it real.

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.

Once you’ve gotten the job, there’s nothing to it. If you’re an actor, you’re an actor. Doing it is not the hard part. The hard part is getting to do it.

As a kid, I was going to be a marine biologist or an actor. When I became successful as an actor, I said, Well, maybe I can lend a voice to this with an equal passion. You realize how lucky we are and how destructive we’ve been and what little regard we have for the natural world.

I’ve always been spontaneous and outgoing… I’ve tried lots of things so I’ve got some good life experiences, which is great ’cause it means I’ve got lots of material to work with as an actor.

I don’t think most people decide to become an actor because they want to be followed around all the time… I see it when I’m with my brothers, and I don’t get it. I don’t understand why someone wants to take a photo of us getting out of a car or on the beach. I think that’s really weird.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.