Nicolas Cage Quotes

In order to be a good actor, I'm a firm believer that you need to bring something to the table.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

For me, Domhnall is an acting teacher as much as anything. If I turn out to be half the actor he is, I'll be happy.

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.

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

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.

Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

You spend enough time on set as an actor and it's great when a director was at some point an actor or understands acting. They're able to finesse performances out of you that a lot directors can't get.

When you work with actors, what you're hoping to absorb is good ways to be an actor as opposed to how to handle being famous.

I've always known from the beginning of my acting career that you only get an acting job if you've got something to learn about it. If you don't do it well, you'll be condemned to doing the same role over and over and over again. If you do it mediocre, you'll have to do it again.

I've seen people with a tremendous amount of educational background in the field not turn out to be terribly good actors, and I've seen people with no education in the field turn out to be people that I admire quite a bit.

I don't think film actors need training, really.

I think a lot of good actors - for instance, Gary Sinise - have no training. His training was really entirely on his feet. I suppose you have to have an instinct for it.

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.

Good acting is good acting, however you learn it. Some people who haven't studied are amazing. Some people like Leonardo DiCaprio are naturally gifted - he's learned technique by working with people early on.

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.

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

They call David O. Russell the actor whisperer because he can get stuff out of actors that maybe some other directors can't.

I had the benefit of watching good people show me what it really is to be an actor - the day in and day out of it.

The better the actor I am acting with, the better my performance gets.

I am always interested in good performance, always tried to improve my skill as an actor.

Actors have their own processes, and if you want to be respectful of their process, you've got to communicate with them in the language of their process, and keeping that all straight is a little bit of a head-scratcher.

That's basically how I learned everything as an actor. I was just a kid, and I worked with these actors, and I'd ask them questions, and then something would work for me, and I'd try to move forward with it.