Screen Acting Quotes

I've had plenty of lessons about film acting and theatre acting.

Film and television as a medium has only very recently begun to be taught at the great drama schools in the UK. When I was at drama school in the UK, I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, "We've taught you Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare, you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liquid commercial."

Small screen or big screen my job on set doesn't really change. The only difference with TV is I get to be surprised with new information just like the audience every time I get a script.

I had done lots of theater and I really wanted to do screen work. I said to my agent, "Look, I really want to do screen work and I want to concentrate on that now" and he said, "Well, it's going to be tough for you."

A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.

I want to get into movies, not just TV series.

My family moved from Massachusetts to Maryland after my sophomore year of high school, and that's when I got the audition for 'Uncle Buck.' I took the train into New York, and I think I did the test with John Candy. Then I got the part, and it was my first movie and my first screen anything.

My strength as an actor is in the theater - I know that about myself. Some actors get onstage and vanish, but I'm much better there than I am on screen.

I've been blessed to have acting opportunities in movies, television, as well as Broadway, and definitely want to continue to do so.

I haven't done as many films as I would have liked. A lot of my contemporaries have done more. I don't have 'I will be a movie star' emblazoned on anything, but I'd like do a bit more screen stuff and then when the time is right come back to theatre. When it is good, theatre takes a lot of beating both to watch and perform.

I loved watching theatre, and film, and television. It was a fantastic outlet and my favourite thing to do. I can't remember the decision. It just felt like a completely natural thing... I just completely felt drawn into it and seduced by it all. I found myself going into it.

On stage you need to emphasize every emotion. But on screen you need to tone everything down and make it believable.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

My father has a general rule. He says if I haven't done it in real life I shouldn't do it on-screen.

It is the same actor in theatre and cinema, just the technique of acting changes.

I may not be a great actress but I've become the greatest at screen orgasms. Ten seconds of heavy breathing, roll your head from side to side, simulate a slight asthma attack and die a little.

The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting - 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors.

I got my SAG card on my first movie, 'Goin' South,' with Jack Nicholson in 1978.

In theater, the primary tool for me was voice. On-screen, it's the eyes.

Ninety-eight per cent of actors who actually make a living do so in front of a camera.

On stage you never watch yourself. You just experience it, and then you go home, and you feel pretty good if you gave a pretty good performance or crappy if you didn't. But in TV and film, you actually have to experience it while you're doing it, and then you have to watch it. And then when you're watching it, you watch it with a different sensibility than how you experienced it.

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.

I am a close friend of Robert Loggia. And I just love how, with actors, there's the screen persona. Here is Robert, known for his portrayal of many characters, including gangsters. But in real life, he is elegant and erudite. He sits in the garden reading the sonnets of William Shakespeare.

I was desperate to do more TV and film. Because I considered myself to be a theater creature. A theater animal. I was convinced that I was going to be onstage for the rest of my life. Because it's something I can really do. I thought I was pretty good at it, and it's kind of stupid, but I was concerned that people would go, "Oh yeah, he's very good onstage, I'm not sure he can do television."