Maggie Smith Quotes

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.

As an actor, I've always been interested in making sure I can perform the role and the lines in the way the writer intended.

The actor is there to translate what's on the page onto the stage or the screen. So I find it important that an actor manages to actually get out of the way, vanish as a person behind the character, never to be seen or talked about again. That's my philosophy.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

When I perform on stage, I often pretend to be someone other than myself to bring a certain emotion or intent to a song.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

The great actors are the luminous ones. They are the great conductors of the stage.

Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very impressive, he's not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

The beauty of acting is you just get lost in it. You play the character, and you hope that it works.

I don't think about how many times how many heroines have said 'I love you' to how many heroes on screen and that I am also doing the same. It is how differently I can say the same thing in my own style or how I can bring a new element into it.

The fundamental job of the actor is to tell about the human condition, to be a voice for the truest ideas and deepest emotions.

The goal, when you're playing a character that's super beloved from a movie, is to honor what the actor before you has done and then really just expand, which is what you get to do in a musical because you have songs, choreography, and everything is happening in real time.

After 'Mulk,' I figured it's your voice that people are connecting with. So then my voice became of prime importance to me for my films.

Actors are magical people. They can take words you wrote and say them in a way that, although you thought the line was good when you wrote it, it's fantastic when it comes out of their mouth.

Acting is the ability to dream on cue.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

When actors are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.

I always tend to see, right after reading the script, the character and how I want to play it. I guess that's sort of most of the work, preparing for the role, but almost the creation of the character seems to go on as I read through the script.

Of course you can find something exciting and dynamic in any character you want to portray.

As actors, you do have to be aware of your audience. You can't act in a vacuum, even if that audience isn't exactly present with you.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

I know Mama Rose is a great role and I love having a chance to do it.

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