Al Pacino Quotes

With my dad coming from a theatre tradition, there was a lot of preparation before auditions. Not just in terms of saying the lines correctly but a process of entering into what it was all about.

Film and stage are very different; I don't necessarily prefer one over the other. Every few years, I get a big itch to go back to the theater. To learn humility, to learn bravery and to remind yourself that the pistons that drive your craft are working on full power. And to remind yourself how badly paid actors can be.

The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct? We are delivering the playwright's intention through the concept of the director. And I come on stage; if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away.

There's a tremendous amount to be gained from being a performer, and being an artist, and being an actor.

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.

As much as I can act, I don't have anything in me that yearns to be an actor - that sense of needing to be onstage, in costume, in character; that is utterly not interesting to me.

As an actor, you wouldn't be able to play a character if you were worried about the reaction to what you're doing.

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting.

Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.

Acting is like any other art form, in that you have the option to go very big or go very small.

I find a similarity between performing music onstage and acting - a reality of emotion.

The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts.

Talking to actors is the same as talking to any other artists; it's getting into the moment for them, and making sure they can lose themselves in the performance!

I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.

When doing theater, you have to find great satisfaction in the small things. There's going to be a repetition and a redundancy night after night, but it's the small variations in those moments - a word, a tone of voice, the smallest sense of enlightenment that can happen in an instant onstage - that will be the most rewarding.

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.

With acting, the response is usually delayed and takes time, unlike with singing, from where I instantly get fans' response.

I feel that if you're going to do theater, you've really got to throw yourself into the deep end. You have to commit your whole life and soul to it to make it the best it could ever be because theater can truly change people in lots of different ways. But I also think it can bore people to death, and it's quite a fine line between those two things.

I've been aware of the work I do as an actor being directorial in feel.

But theatre is always a difficult experience.

I transitioned into theater and acting when I was about 9, community theater and musicals, being, like, chorus-kid-number-78 or whatever. But I just loved it. As a kid you just crave attention, and early on I just felt it was so cool and fun to play around and have people clap for me. But eventually I grew up and fell deeper into it.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

I really love to act; I love everything about it. I've never had this addiction to being known. I mean, sure, if you go into acting, there's part of you that is saying, 'I want attention' but I was brought up to work to deserve attention, and it is the work, not the trappings that are important.

I still feel I belong to the theatre. There is nothing more challenging and exciting for an actor than performing before a live audience. The stage is the real testing ground for an actor.