Acting as a Profession Quotes

I had a really complicated relationship with acting for a long time.

Personally, the first year when I started making enough money just from acting - by that, I mean not doing anything else but acting - was around 2003.

What made me want to be an actor? Ah, I'm not really sure, to be honest. I was one of those little kids who did it around school, and then I got to university and made lots of bad plays and short films, and then midway through that, it suddenly dawned on me that this might be a satisfying way to earn a living, if that was at all feasible.

Really it was the first time in my life that I recognised that acting is, I'm just going to say it, I am an artist, I have to do this, I have to do this.

What I like to do as an actor is transform. It's way more fun to play characters who are completely different than me. I like playing characters who appear one way on the outside but are actually very different from that.

My day job is acting - I wouldn't direct something if I didn't feel passionate about it.

I was bored one day, so my dad took me to this acting school. I liked it more than having fun - I liked it for an actual job.

I used to be under the impression that if a role wasn't difficult, then there was nothing happening. Then a director said to me: 'Ken, you've got to realise, acting can be fun, too.'

I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.

It isn't called TV money for nothing. There was a time where I paid my rent by doing theater for years, and I was able to buy groceries and pay my electric bill. I considered myself to be making a living as an actor. This kind of money that we make is a whole other level, of course. But it really is simply the cherry on top of a job and a role that I adore.

I'm doing a little bit of acting, but I can't really say it's going to be a career or even that I'm really suited to it. It's a whole other craft you have to study and be passionate about.

I couldn't have ever married an actor. They have a childishness carried into an age when maturity should have set in.

When I was first starting out, if you were acting on television, it was a real stigma.

I used to be a bit obsessed by acting but not anymore. I do enjoy acting but I probably enjoy it more now because it's easier. I can't work in the theater because to me it's too serious. It's like being in prison for me. I admire people that can do that but I can't do it. I'd rather live my life and do a bit of acting in between.

I was an assistant director for a year, and I realized, 'God, this is a lot of hard work. This is going to take time. So what's the shortcut? What's the better option?' Then thankfully, someone said, 'Why don't you become an actor?'

I don't want to do acting as a chore or a job.

For me, acting is a long-term thing. I'm not in a hurry to make it. I have no desire to explode onto the film industry. I still want to be acting when I'm 60.

I'm not entirely comfortable saying I'm an actor, because it seems like a very weird, almost dorky thing to say you are. I laugh after every take just out of the discomfort I feel that I'm even on film. It's an awkward thing for me to be doing. Once we get going, it's always fine, and as we're shooting, I'm never thinking about it. I'd say that all my time in front of the camera is equally uncomfortable for me.

Being an actor is fantastic because you get to live your dreams and all of that, but I always think it's slightly irritating when you hear from the outside world, and people are like, 'Yeah, well, if I was an actor, and all I had to do was look good, I could be that ripped, too.'

Making a transition to the adult acting industry was pretty smooth for me, and I had a great balance and a great opportunity not to do just children shows.

Actually I love acting in commercials and I see no shame in that.

Acting's more of a business for me now.

James Remar is a student of life. I'm expressing myself by acting. I'm learning about myself and making a living.

Acting as a career is a long term thing and that work is kind of progressive and you can build on a career. It's part of the great tradition of the theater to me.

People are very uncomfortable when you call actors artists because there are a lot of actors out there that aren't artists - there are a lot of actors that are hired for very specific reasons that are shallow and have to do with sexual currency and what the industry thinks sells. Real actors are artists, they're expressionists.