Rob Reiner Quotes

See, that's the thing: I'm not one of those actors who thinks, 'God, I've got to improvise and make it my own.' No, my first job as an actor is to take what's written and make it work. And then, if they want me to improvise, I'll do that.

Writing and directing might be a red herring, and really I'm just re-examining what it is to act, to do it well and do it properly.

There is no first-hand account of what the Queen was saying or thinking, so my job as an actor is to interpret her circumstances.

I'm always amazed when any actor can decipher my direction.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

It's fatal to talk about acting. It sounds faintly ridiculous if you start analysing it.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

When people give you a writing assignment, they're asking what you think. That's the very opposite of being an actor. When you're an actor, no one wants to hear what you think.

When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It's the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion.

As an actor all we want to do is act and play people.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

Literature is an easier way to study acting, because then you can take any kind of spin.

Actors are investigators.

I'm an actor and my job is to interpret.

To be able to work with actors who are doing such good work, not only makes it easier for you, but it makes you better.

Actors take risks all the time. We put ourselves on the line. It is creative to be able to interpret someone's words and breathe life into them.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

A great actor is independent of the poet, because the supreme essence of feeling does not reside in prose or in verse, but in the accent with which it is delivered.

It's hard talking about acting, in a way, because it's like explaining a joke: I do think it loses something in the telling.

I like the idea of acting. Of all these things I've done, sometimes I think I've done well, and sometimes I think I didn't do well, but they are more cameos, and I come in and be crazy.

I love actors, and I love good acting. I love what actors do when they're good, and I'm a big acting fan.

I live in the energy and rhythm of the character. To some degree, that's true of every actor I've worked with.

I always have a rule that acting is acting and truth is truth and you just go out there and you do it. But what happens in each medium is that you have other responsibilities. The acting remains the same, but each medium dictates assuming other halves to make the acting work.

A lot of actors and actresses pull from past experiences.

It's important to listen to the actor who is there on the stage and living it.