Elia Kazan Quotes

Marilyn Manson is a criticism of gimmickry, while being itself a gimmick.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

Once you look past the hype, actors are nothing more than fugitives from reality who specialize in contradiction: we are both children and hardened adults—wide-eyed pupils and jaded working stiffs.

In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it.

I became an actor so I didn't have to be myself.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

I'm always in disguise in one form or another in my plays.

I was Aladdin, and then I was Captain Von Trapp from 'Sound Of Music' when I was 7 or 8, and then King Arthur. I was always the lead. I've always enjoyed being onstage, acting obnoxious, being someone that wasn't me, hiding behind a character.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

That's why I'm an actress, to do something completely opposite from myself.

Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting.

Acting to me is real life - I don't act.

Acting is acting.

I find it very hard to play a part, then take it off like a cheap suit and become Mr Normal - Mr. Nice Guy.

I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?

Acting is like a Halloween mask that you put on.

I don't know, I feel like any role that I play is a little piece of me, whether it's their perspective, maybe how they dress, what they think is funny, their loyalty to their friends. It all stems from Kiersey.

I play grizzlys, but I'm not a grizzly. I'm a song-and-dance man.

Acting is what I do with who I am.

I'd like to have a different look for every film. As an actor, I think I should put more emphasis on my performance than on my looks.

I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

He who recites dramatic works makes discoveries about his own character.

As an actress, you get to basically be your character.

I feel like my home is stage acting.