Sanford Meisner Quotes

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

— Sanford Meisner

“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.”

— Sanford Meisner

“Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“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.”

— Sanford Meisner

“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.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“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.”

— Sanford Meisner

“That which hinders your task is your task.”

— Sanford Meisner

If you have the emotion, it infects you and the audience. If you don't have it don't bother; just say your lines as truthfully as you are capable of doing. You can't fake emotion.

— Sanford Meisner

“The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting.”

— Sanford Meisner

“An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“Courage means willing to risk everything.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

Every little moment has a meaning all its own.

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“Listen with your gut, not your head.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“Find in yourself those human things which are universal.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“The foundation of acting is the reality of doing.”

— Sanford Meisner

The text is your greatest enemy.

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“Acting is fun ... don't let that get around!”

— Sanford Meisner

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.

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“The American actor is very lucky ... Because so little is asked of him.”

— Sanford Meisner

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

— Sanford Meisner

“There's no such thing as nothing.”

— Sanford Meisner