25 quotes
An actor's a guy, who if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.
The Observer (1956)
Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coarse guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can't help it, but, it is troubling.
Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life.
The principal benefit acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.
There's a line in the picture where he snarls, "Nobody tells me what to do." That's exactly how I've felt all my life.
Portraits and Film Stills 1946-1995 (1996)
The close-up says everything, it's then that an actor's learned, rehearsed behavior becomes most obvious to an audience and chips away, unconsciously, at its experience of reality. In a close-up, the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage.
Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.
Acting serves as the quintessential social lubricant and a device for protecting our interests and gaining advantage in every aspect of life.
Introduction to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler (1988)
Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long.
Bertolucci is extraordinary in his ability to perceive, he's a poet...he is very easy to work for.
You are very attractive, but the coat you're wearing makes me think you are either a very rich woman or a very rich man's mistress.
On the day Kazan showed me the completed picture I was so depressed by my performance that I got up and left the screening room.
Speaking of his performance in On the Waterfront (1954)
It is a simple fact that all of us use the techniques of acting to achieve whatever ends we seek.
Introduction to The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler (1988)
With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes.
The power and influence of a movie star is curious: I didn't ask for it or take it; people gave it to me. Simply because you're a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges.
Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
Conviction of the myth is everything. We need myths, we live by myths, we die for myths.
Listen to Me Marlon (2015)
I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.
Songs My Mother Taught Me (1994)
I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed.
Chaplin you got to go with. Chaplin is a man whose talents is such that you have to gamble. First off, comedy is his backyard. He's a genius, a cinematic genius. A comedic talent without peer.
This picture will try to show the Nazism is a matter of mind, not geography, and that there are Nazis — and people of good will — in every country. The world can't spend its life looking over its shoulder and nursing hatreds. There would be no progress that way.