R. Lee Ermey Quotes

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

I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting.

The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.

To me, a lot of what makes a good actor is not what a teacher tells you to do but how you respond when you're on your own.

I would be the worst acting coach ever, because I have no idea what I'm doing.

All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.

To be a good actor you have to feel life and observe life.

I have nine years of scholastic actor training, and what I've learned is that training does not an actor make. You have to have an artful way of looking at things. You have to have a certain point of view. And you get that point of view through experience.

I think listening to the director is the number one strength an actor should have.

If you are a good actor, then all you have to do is give your best shot every time when you are in front of the camera regardless of who else is around you.

I am not from a film family. I don't know much, but I definitely knew that if I want to be a good enough actor, I should be able to do any sort of role.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It's a craft. It's like being a ballerina or a violinist.

I think in any form of acting, you're always well served if you've done theater.

Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach.

I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture.

Watching a good actor is the best way to learn.

Drama school can't make you a brilliant actor, but you can do stuff for three years - you're not going to be fired. You should just go for it all, even the stuff you think is codswallop.

My acting coach I've got here, Richard Lawson, he's been doing good, just telling me to calm down sometimes and just be me.

Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.

I think you can really tell a good actor if you can put a camera on them and they can just talk and emote and react and you don't have to keep cutting away from them, because they are the language and the behavior. It's all a tour-de-force performance.

The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

As an actor, your life experience is just as important as studying.

I trained as a stage actor and was given a lot of technical tools to play with.