Inspiring Creativity: Quotes by Renowned Actors & Actresses

Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.
Konstantin Stanislavsky (January 17, 1863 –August 7, 1938), Russian actor and theatre director

Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the creative secrets.
Konstantin Stanislavsky

Talent is nothing but a prolonged period of attention and a shortened period of mental assimilation.
Konstantin Stanislavsky

In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born.
Konstantin Stanislavsky

Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors.
Konstantin Stanislavsky

Imagination means nothing without doing.
Charles Chaplin (April 16, 1889 –December 25, 1977), English comic actor and filmmaker

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl
Charlie Chaplin

Courage and grace are a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is in the bullring
Marlene Dietrich (December 27, 1901 –May 6, 1992), German-American actress

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
Marlene Dietrich

A painter paints, a musician plays, a writer writes – but a movie actor waits.
Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987), American actress.

I don’t know what is better than the work that is given to the actor — to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
Laurence Olivier (May 22, 1907 –July 11, 1989), British actor, director, and producer

The actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
Laurence Olivier

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.
Bette Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), American actress

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else
Bette Davis

Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), American actor and director

I dont believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”
Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), American actor and director

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Peter Ustinov (April 16, 1921 –March 28, 2004), English actor

Acting isn’t really a creative profession. It’s an interpretative one.
Paul Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008), American actor, film director

We come. We go. And in between we try to understand.
Rod Steiger (April 14, 1925 – July 9, 2002), American actor

Man is a greater miracle than any god he ever invented.
Rod Steiger

When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn’t know how to play them when I was drunk.
Richard Burton (November 10, 1925 –August 5, 1984), Welsh actor

If I’d observed all the rules I’d never have got anywhere.
Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), American actress

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Marilyn Monroe

Love and work are the only two real things in our lives. They belong together, otherwise it is off. Work is in itself a form of love.
Marilyn Monroe

A career is born in public — talent in privacy.
Marilyn Monroe

I don’t want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.
Marilyn Monroe

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer.
Marilyn Monroe

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‘One tear, right now,’ that one tear would pop out.
Marilyn Monroe

I tried always to do better: saw always a little further. I tried to stretch myself.
Audrey Hepburn (May 4,1929 –January 20, 1993), British actress

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject
Clint Eastwood (born May 31, 1930), American actor and director

I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.
Elizabeth Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011), British-American actress

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
Sophia Loren (September 20, 1934), Italian actress

A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.
Brigitte Bardot (born 28 September 1934), French former actress and animal rights activist

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.
Julie Andrews Edwards (born 1 October 1935), British film and stage actress

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly
Julie Andrews

The creative is the place where no one else have ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
Alan Alda (born January 28, 1936), American actor and director

You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.
Alan Alda

Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.
Robert Redford (born August 18, 1936), American actor, film director and producer

I love acting, and I`m not going to determine what I do based on what I fear other people might think. I do what I want to do.
Dustin Hoffman (born August 8, 1937), American actor

Stardom equals freedom. It`s the only equation that matters.
Dustin Hoffman

It’s never too late – never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.
Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937), American actress

I found out that drama was a fascinating exercise as a way to get out of my self and into somebody else’s head.
Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942), American film actor and producer

Time goes on. So whatever you’re going to do, do it. Do it now. Don’t wait.
Robert De Niro (born August 17, 1943), American actor

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

Movies are hard work. The public doesn’t see that. The critics don’t see it. But they’re a lot of work. A lot of work.
Robert De Niro

Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
Steve Martin (born August 14, 1945), American actor and comedian

A joke that works is complete knowledge in a nanosecond.
Steve Martin

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947), Austrian-born American actor

He lives with his creativity in high gear.
John Travolta (born February 18, 1954), American actor

I have a passion for my work, and that sometimes triggers creative conflicts.
Demi Moore (born November 11, 1962), American actress

…joy is integral to all creativity. Creativity brings joy.
Matthew Fox (born July 14, 1966), American actor

I’m an artist, and the need to get inside myself and be creative and be other people is a part of who I am. I don’t imagine I’ll abandon that completely.
Gwyneth Paltrow (born September 27, 1972), American actress

When I’m working I don’t have room to think about myself and my own issues. It’s really freeing. There is no room for me, which is really nice.
Charlize Theron (born 7 August, 1975), South African and American actress

I mean I tried to transform myself through characters throughout my career.
Charlize Theron

I have been working a lot, and I like it. And you know, it’s hard for me not to. I guess I’ve been working a lot because I get to play with brilliant people.
Charlize Theron

You are only as great as the opportunities that are given to you.
Charlize Theron

I think in life we want to challenge ourselves.
Charlize Theron

Creative collaboration is awesome.
Alicia Silverstone (born October 4, 1976), American actress

I think it’s really important for actors to have another creative outlet, or for anyone, really.
Mia Wasikowska (born 14 October 1989), Australian actress

 

FILM DIRECTORS QUOTES ON CREATIVITY

FAMOUS FILM DIRECTORS AND ACTORS ABOUT CREATIVITY

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
Cecil B. DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959), American film director and producer

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
Frank Capra (May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991), Sicilian-born American film director

Don’t follow trends, start trends.
Frank Capra

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse.
Walt Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966), American animator, director and screenwriter

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
Walt Disney

You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.
Walt Disney

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.
Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 –March 27, 2002), Austrian-born American filmmaker and screenwriter

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark – that is critical genius.
Billy Wilder

To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.
Akira Kurosawa (March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998), Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer

Art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God.
Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918 –July 30, 2007) was a Swedish director, writer and producer

Film has dream, film has music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.
Ingmar Bergman

A different language is a different vision of life.
Federico Fellini (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993) was an Italian film director and scriptwriter

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one…. It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.
Federico Fellini

Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.
Federico Fellini

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.
Federico Fellini

A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999), American film director and screenwriter

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.
Stanley Kubrick

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.
Stanley Kubrick

What the hell does it all mean anyhow? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing comes to anything. And yet, there’s no shortage of idiots to babble. Not me. I have a vision.
Woody Allen (December 1, 1935),American screenwriter and director

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.
Woody Allen

You ought to love what you’re doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.
Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939), American film director and producer

Art depends on luck and talent.
Francis Ford Coppola

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.
Francis Ford Coppola

I realized I probably wouldn’t make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like ‘Godfather’ or ‘Apocalypse.’
Francis Ford Coppola

Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.
David Lynch (born January 20, 1946), American filmmaker and television director

The concept of absurdity is something I’m attracted to.
David Lynch

I dream for a living.
Steven Spielberg (born December 18, 1946), American film director and screenwriter

Only a generation of readers will span a generation of writers.
Steven Spielberg

You have many years ahead of you to create the dreams that we can’t even imagine dreaming. You have done more for the collective unconscious of this planet than you will ever know.
Steven Spielberg

I actually think one of my strengths is my storytelling.
Quentin Tarantino (born March 27, 1963), American film director and screenwriter

I steal from every movie ever made.
Quentin Tarantino

When I’m writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I’m doing it, as I’m writing it.
Quentin Tarantino