Olivier Martinez Quotes

The difference between great actors and the rest of us isn't simply that they know how to make more out of less, but that, like lions at the watering hole, they will always take more than their share from the pool of available resources - extra air from the room, added knowledge from our faces.

To be a great actor, you really don't need to go to acting school or learn dance classes or work on your body. You have to be intelligent. You have to draw on a lot of emotions that you go through in life that you can tap into once you work on a set.

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

To me, acting is all about hard work and talent. Once you get your first wrinkle, if you are a female actress, nobody will care about what you look like - it's all about what you can do.

I think personal growth has much to do with acting ability.

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.

I always learn something from every actor I've ever worked with. I always pick something from them.

You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.

Listen, I like great actors. You can be a movie star without being a great actor - this has been proved several times - and I like my casts to have great actors. Acting is more important to me than being a star.

I have only really gotten by with playing versions of myself as most young actors do.

I've come to this conclusion: What makes a great actor is great need. A huge need of acting.

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them.

There's a small percentage of people who can act. There's a small percentage who get to do this for a living. There's a swath of the population that are able to keep a story in their head and fight all the battles against self-consciousness and the surreal unnaturalness of acting in a movie. The technical aspects you can learn fairly quickly.

I mean, the actors that I admired were Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, an actress named Barbara Harris. And Greta Garbo. They were great actors.

I've really had good luck working with younger actors. Every younger actor that I have worked with has always been really on top of their game and fascinating to watch.

The great thing about acting is that, until you're dead, you can do it. There are aspects to it that as time goes on you hope you get better at, and there are a lot of things that I'm excited to explore.

I'm largely interested in people who are just great actors, and they're not necessarily hugely famous.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.

The great amount of fun that I have is I can cast dramatic actors to play comedic roles, and I can cast comedic actors to play dramatic roles because, really, there's no such thing. There's just actors.

Playing a plainer role means everything is dependent on the credentials of the actor, not the fact that they are as pretty as Julia Roberts. People start to look at their talent rather than their appearance. And playing the ugly part often means less time in the make-up chair, which is a great benefit on set.

I know what my limitations are as an actor, but my strength is putting myself into a well-written part. When I get in trouble is when I have to fix it, or when I have to carry it on personality.

Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary; I think he may be one of the best actors ever that we've worked with.

When I talk about character work, I don't really feel like i do much as an actor when I look at other great actors who win big awards for doing incredible transformations.

I studied acting at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh because I figured a good comedian certainly could act.