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Meryl Streep -

"Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there."

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Emma Stone - “What sets you apart can feel like a burden, but it’s not. A lot of the time it’s what makes you great.”

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Leonardo DiCaprio -

"I've been planted here to be a vessel for acting... that's why I'm really taking any part, regardless of how complicated it's going to be."

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Rami Malek - “When you do something that people respond to, and then you start altering the blueprint for what worked, it’s pretty fear-inducing. But sometimes, you have to do that, in order to push the boundaries.”

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Marlon Brando -

“To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.”

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Robert De Niro - "One of the things about acting is it allows you to live other people's lives without having to pay the price."

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Anthony Hopkins - "The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting."

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Judi Dench - “I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself. That is the best combination.”

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Philip Seymour Hoffman -

“Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It’s not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.”

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Daniel Radcliffe -

“It’s important to say that the more challenging a scene is, in a way, the more fun it is because the more of my job I get to do.”

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Morgan Freeman -

"It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing."

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Natalie Portman -

"Accept your lack of knowledge and use it as your asset.”

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Jack Nicholson -

"If you get an impulse in a scene, no matter how wrong it seems, follow the impulse. It might be something and if it ain't... take two."

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Willem Dafoe - “When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses. Which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you’re playing a cartoon character.”

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Jeff Daniels -

“Flip it. Hit the stage and go; 'Keep up.' But you’ve got to do the work. You can’t do that without preparing the work. The great ones work that hard all the way to the end.”

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Jake Gyllenhaal -

“The only way I can move past the absurdity of what I do, is to commit to the point of absurdity.”

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Kevin Bacon - “If you’re an actor, even a successful one, you’re still waiting for the phone to ring.”

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Adam Driver - “Acting is really about having the courage to fail in front of people.”

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Maggie Smith -

“There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it’s there it’s stunning and there is nothing to match that.”

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Jessica Alba - "I love acting because it's this space where dreams can be realized, fantasy comes to life, and there are no limitations on what's possible."

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Ingrid Bergman -

"It's not whether you really cry. It's whether the audience thinks you are crying."

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Maggie Gyllenhaal - “Acting is a form of self-expression, it’s not becoming someone else, and it’s not playing make believe; it’s about using the fiction of being someone else to express something about yourself.”

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Elliot Page -

“The thing I like about acting is being able to lose yourself completely in someone else. I’m not that comfortable when I get recognized.”

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Jesse Eisenberg - “As an actor you try to bring as much of yourself to a part to try and create a feeling of authenticity and emotional truth and resonance.”

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Ralph Fiennes - “I’m sure acting is a deeply neurotic thing to do.”

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Holly Hunter - “I feel like telling stories is a spiritual exercise and I think that it’s something that we need as a culture and as humans. You put your nightmares up there, you put your dreams up there and people can see them better because they can stand outside of it and recognize themselves inside it.”

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Jessica Chastain - “It’s tough, acting. You have to walk two lines of a tightrope. There’s the all consuming fear of failure… and there’s also confidence–you have to be confident to try new things... And they fight each other all the time.”

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Michelle Williams - “Every movie I make I find kind of excruciating. I get a lot back from it, but I feel like I’m kind of always working at the edge of my ability. I guess that’s what I’m looking for when I go to work. I am trying to become the edge.”

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Chiwetel Ejiofor -

“I think the crucial thing about being an actor is to be doing it.”

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Riz Ahmed - “If any of the work, that any of us do, contributes to the stretching of culture, the stretching of boundaries of empathy that’s expected of an audience… that’s the holy grail.”

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David Oyelowo - “For me, our job as artists is to serve the story, serve the director, and serve the fellow actors. And if you do that, by osmosis you’re serving yourself because you’ll get the best out of yourself.”

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Naomie Harris -

“Actors should not feel scared, about the fact that they’re scared. I think it’s a good sign.”

Sources: (StageMilk) (Backstage) (Notable Quotes)

See also: The best quotes about music from famous musicians

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