Sanford Meisner Quotes

Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts.

Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is, theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity. But today, most actors simply want to be famous. Well, being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.

Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

If you want to reach every person in the audience, it's not about being bigger, it's about going deeper.

Don't be an actor. Be a human being who works off what exists under imaginary circumstances.

Your acting will not be good until it is only yours. That's true of music, acting, anything creative. You work until finally nobody is acting like you.

Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theater, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning.

The only way to deal with yourself as an actor is to follow the emotional truth of what you have to do under the imaginary circumstances. And as you develop you become confident. You come to believe in what you're doing and trust it because it's out of you.

I'll tell you this: you cannot escape the impact of emotion, whether it's in a big theater or a tiny one. If you have it, it inflates you — correction, 'inflates' is not a good word. If you have it, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it — don't bother; just say the lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion. It immediately exposes the fact that you ain't got it.

You can't learn to act unless you're criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you'll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done.

An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.

Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.

The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting.

That which hinders your task is your task.

Courage means willing to risk everything.

Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself - another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing.

Every little moment has a meaning all its own.

With a developed imagination there's no place you can't go.

You don't pick up cues, you pick up impulses.

Acting in a scene is like paddling a canoe from a pebbly beach on to the river, the writer builds the canoe, and the actor provides the river. The river is the actor's thoughts and emotions.

Listen with your gut, not your head.

WHY is the most important word in an actor's vocabulary.

Acting is the ability to live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances

Find in yourself those human things which are universal.

The greatest piece of acting or music or sculpture or what-have-you always has its roots in the truth of human emotion.

The truth of your instincts is the root of your foundation.

You know it's all right to be wrong, but it's not all right not to try.

The foundation of acting is the reality of doing.

The text is your greatest enemy.

There's no such thing as nothing.

Acting is fun. Don't let that get around.

Technique is something that you use if you need it. Otherwise, to hell with it.

Acting is not talking, it's living off the other fellow!!!

That's very different, picking up the impulse instead of picking up the cue.

Acting can be fun. Don't let it get around.

The American actor is very lucky. Why? Because so little is asked of him.