ACTRESS QUOTES
FILM MAKING TIPS

Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful even if it was just vicariously.
--Joan Allen

I was so lucky. I was very broke and I was taking classes at Lee Strasberg's Institute and I saw a 3 X 5 index card on the bulletin board advertising for college-aged girls for a film. That was Animal House.
--Karen Allen

As far as pacing the shoot is concerned, I know when I've got it. I don't think there's any reason to take ten takes unless you need them.
--Debbie Allen

I took an acting class for 10 seconds before I played a lead in a student movie. I showed the film to an agent who said he would send me on interviews but wouldn't sign me.
--Kirstie Alley

And I'm not an actress. I don't think I am an actress. I think I've created a brand and a business.
--Pamela Anderson

As a brunette, I had previously been this serious actress. Then I became a blonde and got to play a completely different, comic role.
--Loni Anderson

Actors are trusting souls, and we must go by gut-level instinct, even after our agents and business managers weigh all the odds.
--Anne Archer

After being in the business for such a long time, I've done everything but rodeo and porno.
--Bea Arthur

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
--Lauren Bacall

I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker. We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.
--Anne Bancroft

Acting is like a high wire act. Your margin for error is very slim.
--Christine Baranski

Acting is a matter of giving away secrets.
--Ellen Barkin

For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a MaCaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.
--Ethel Barrymore

I feel there are two people inside me - me and my intuition. If I go against her, she'll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.
--Kim Basinger

There is always one person on the set who has a lot of anxiety, an actor who is really intense and has to stay in character and holds himself away from the rest of us.
--Maria Bello

Acting is not about being famous, it's about exploring the human soul.
--Annette Bening

Hollywood is like Picasso's bathroom.
--Candice Bergen

Here's the thing - you can't be careful about what you pick because what looks like on paper is going to be a great script has often turned out to be a disaster, so there's no way to know what's going to work or to pick the right thing.
--Halle Berry

It's hard to keep a play alive moment-to-moment, you know? But there's another part of it that I really love, which is that you never know.
--Lorraine Bracco

I do like to work with young directors because it's such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.
--Ellen Burstyn

If you make films, you're changing rhythm the whole time. You go from a quiet life to an absolutely turbulent life which is typical of moviemaking. And then you get back to your normal life and you have to have nerves of steel.
--Geraldine Chaplin

If it's true that men are such beasts, this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers.
--Doris Day

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.
--Bette Davis

If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.
--Geena Davis

I didn't care about being the 'star.' I just wanted to make a living and have a consistent career.
--Angie Dickinson

I enjoy doing independent films more, only because there's more freedom. There's not as many cooks tampering with what you are trying to do.
--Illeana Douglas

As an actress, it appeals to me because I love the idea of playing those in-between moments, the sort of behavioral stuff that one might not normally see.
--Julia Louis-Dreyfus

So many people are called but few serve as actors, you know what I mean?
--Faye Dunaway

I have always wanted to act ever since I was a little girl. I would put a blanket under my shirt and pretend that I was pregnant. Then, I would go through childbirth.
--Dakota Fanning

I get it now; I didn't get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible... and enjoying everything in between.
--Mia Farrow

I joined the Actors Studio and began to work with Lee Strasberg, and that changed my work.
--Sally Field

As actors, the thing we have to fight, more than even the business part of making movies, is boredom.
--Linda Fiorentino

As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don't.
--Carrie Fisher

My interest in acting was overwhelming, but I wasn't thinking, "I'm going to California and I'm going to become a movie star." Things were different then. I lived just for the moment, and whatever happened, happened.
--Louise Fletcher

I'm an assistant storyteller. It's like being a waiter or a gas-station attendant, but I'm waiting on six million people a week, if I'm lucky.
--Jane Fonda

But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.
--Jodie Foster

I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.
--Ava Gardner

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
-Judy Garland

Don't like small talk, love rainy days.
--Melissa Gilbert

An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything.
--Whoopi Goldberg

Acting is like playing, while directing is really fun, sort of like an orgy.
--Rachel Griffiths

A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it.
--Maggie Gyllenhaal

A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
--Daryl Hannah

All those days of waiting on tables until I could get a role on Broadway, all that time going to school taking lessons, and all those years of being a nobody following a dream-and now here it is.
--Marcia Gay Harden

All I ever wanted to be was happy.
--Goldie Hawn

Increasingly, stars are recruited from the ranks of professional models, with the result that today's starlets are better dressed and better groomed than ever before, though it is doubtful if they are better actresses.
--Rita Hayworth

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.
--Katharine Hepburn

I'm afraid of being lazy and complacent. I'm afraid of taking myself too seriously.
--Barbara Hershey

If there's a message, it's that the unlovable and unattractive parts of ourselves should be embraced. The only real currency between people is what happens when they're not cool. And I hope people feel OK about not being cool.
--Helen Hunt

It's hard for me to get good work. You don't see me more because it's hard for me to find stuff that I want to do. I would love to work more-I really would-but there is not a lot of stuff around and the stuff that is around is not very complicated; it tends to lie a little flat.
--Holly Hunter

I like it when you read a script and there's the part that you show to the other characters and then there's the part that only the audience knows.
--Anjelica Huston

I don't believe in guilt, I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person, and don't judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free.
--Angelina Jolie

I just have to keep going back to the core and think that we're all afraid of it and when we're afraid of it, you run to something much easier, something that looks like candy.
--Diane Keaton

I have a hard time visualizing anything, which is why I'm not a director, and which is why I try to work with ones I know have a strong idea in mind.
--Catherine Keener

I will never be satisfied. Life is one constant search for the betterment for me.
-- Jayne Mansfield

I'd rather go back to waitressing than play a character that I hate.
-- Julianna Margulies

I've been allowed to develop my own character, which I'm still working on.
-- Rue McClanahan

I love to work. I love to have complexity.
-- Mary McDonnell

I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be.
-- Frances McDormand

I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.
-- Bette Midler

I look to longevity. I just consider myself an actress and getting good roles. If being a 'superstar' gets me good roles, then that's a positive thing. But my goal isn't just to be a superstar. It's to act for a long time.
-- Penelope Ann Miller

Audiences are the same all over the world, and if you entertain them, they'll respond.
-- Liza Minnelli

An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.
-- Marilyn Monroe

I want things to be the best they can be. I want greatness.
-- Demi Moore

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.
-- Mary Tyler Moore

Comedy is ridiculously hard. And if the rhythm is not right, if the music or the line is not right, it's not funny.
-- Julianne Moore

Everything I thought about acting and having a movie career has changed from what I thought when I started.
-- Rebecca De Mornay

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.
-- Bebe Neuwirth

Night time is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.
-- Catherine O'Hara

I'm an artist, and the need to get inside myself and be creative and be other people is a part of who I am. I don't imagine I'll abandon that completely.
-- Gwyneth Paltrow

After every movie, I always kick myself for the same things-didn't do enough, not enough variation, not enough interesting choices, too bland.
-- Robin Wright Penn

Somewhere along the line I made the switch and was able to look at the bight side rather than the dark side all the time. Now I look at everything I have and think how lucky I am.
-- Michelle Pfeiffer

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
-- Mary Pickford

I like to think of myself as kind of a sculptor, only I sculpt people.
-- Kathleen Quinlan

Ask the right questions if you're to find the right answers.
-- Vanessa Redgrave

I'm an actor who hates dialogue and the present day and reality.
-- Christina Ricci

I just want to make a point that it's not just great teachers that sometimes shape your life. Sometimes it's the absence of great teachers that shapes your life and being ignored can be just as good for a person as being lauded.
-- Julia Roberts

When two people love each other, they don't look at each other, they look in the same direction.
-- Ginger Rogers

If we are completely honest with ourselves, everyone has a dark side to their personalities.
-- Isabella Rossellini

There is so much more than that little space from 14 to 40. And if you cut that off and begin to believe that you are not good past a certain age, then you end up scared and insecure and afraid. That is definitely NOT beautiful.
-- Rene Russo

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.
-- Susan Sarandon

You can never judge your characters. You have to love them, really care about them. You're never just playing a villain or the crazy lady.
-- Annabella Sciorra

I am most proud of my integrity and least proud of my cynicism.
-- Chloe Sevigny

You cannot do everything at once, so find people you trust to help you. And don't be afraid to say no.
-- Jane Seymour

You don't forget the movies, but you forget the details of them.
-- Sissy Spacek

I love being in the business I'm in-I do love being a part of a group of people that work well together. I love it when there's a connection.
-- Mary Steenburgen

Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
-- Meryl Streep

One thing I've learned: You never know where life is taking you, but it's taking you.
-- Hilary Swank

And it's absolutely true that male sexual behaviour and female responses to male demands change a lot when they start communicating - and the levels of the communication that I've seen on the ground in very, very poor areas are so high and I think why don't we have that here?
-- Emma Thompson

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan.
-- Uma Thurman

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.
-- Lily Tomlin

It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them.
-- Lana Turner

Pain is such an important thing in life. I think that as an artist you have to experience suffering.
-- Naomi Watts

I like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me. I'm the kind of actress who absolutely believes in exposing herself.
-- Kate Winslet

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