Joe Morton Quotes

I'm baffled when young actors aren't familiar with current film, television and theater, or aren't interested in older films or plays and the history of the craft in general. If you don't know what's out there, and what came before, then how can you picture yourself working, and how can anyone else?

Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.

You have to remember that you are part of a craft, and you are constantly building your craft. Ultimately, we are artists, so it comes from us. And I think the tricky thing about being an actor is that we're looking for someone else to give us something... Thinking like an artist and thinking like an out-of-work actor are two different things.

I'm excited to flex my Broadway muscles - it keeps you alive as an actor.

It's not like every actor needs to train, but an actor will either develop their process through training or through working.

I think to be a good actor you need either a good experience of life or education, or both.

Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career.

I know some actors feel classes are not cool or they create negative public relations, but I continue to crave the story just beyond my reach. To grasp that brass ring I need to continue to fine-tune my talents.

Language allows one to crack the code of culture

It is the business of culture to make us able to consider with intelligent interest all real opinions, even those we do not and can not accept.

Being an actor is lot like being a dancer: you always have to go back to the bar and either work or take classes. Otherwise, you'll get rusty.

I think it's so important when you're playing a character that you can't judge the person you're playing at all. It's a judgment-free zone. You have to just go for it.

I don't think enough journalists read enough - literature, history. You've got to keep reading all through your career.

I'm turned on by guys who are cultured. That'll keep me intrigued. They don't have to have a single degree, but they should speak other languages or know things about other parts of the world or history or certain artists or musicians. I like to be taught. I like to sit on that side of the table.

If you're not educated to enjoy the arts, if you're not taken to a concert, or you don't hear something beautiful, you don't know what you're missing.

A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade - and also you have to live a life and experience things.

An actor tries to be versatile, to immerse himself in a different culture.

I truly believe in cinema's potential for cultural impact. I have a clear idea what I want to do - to enrich people's lives.

Every government secretary of state or minister should jolly well go to the theatre, go to a concert, go to an art gallery, go to a museum, become somehow interested in these things. If they're not interested, they shouldn't be in government, full stop.

My No. 1 piece of advice, especially for someone who's an actor-singer-dancer - a triple threat, they're called! - people say, 'What's the most important?' I always say acting. Without knowing why you're singing or what you're singing about, it's just noise. And without knowing why you're moving your body, it's just flailing of arms.

I just want to grow as an actor and work with good directors.

People don't realize how black people, minorities, women as well, all their lives, they have had to make the effort to understand everybody else. All my life, I've known American culture very well. I probably know American literature more than the average American.

I'm a self-taught actor, which means that I had to learn everything on my own, as I wanted to know the craft deeper and deeper.

Eight years of steady acting training nonstop... three years in the profession. And I'm still in the apprentice mode and I'm still watching everybody and learning.

I'm a huge fan of the liberal arts approach of teaching you to think, analyze, and communicate, then sending you out into the world to cause trouble.