I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint, and a way of moving which meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not.
Acting - Actors Quotes
I made the mistake early in my career, when I moved to Hollywood, of being attracted to actresses. I used to go out exclusively with actresses and all other female impersonators.
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? (1927)
I sweat. If anything comes easy to me I mistrust it.
The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. (Hamlet)
While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.
Overacting is a self-indulgence, while underacting comes either through a lack of talent or a lack of courage.
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special o’erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, […]
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
I had to resort to acting. (on how he managed to play Dr. Mengele)
