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Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word.

Stella Adler

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Stella Adler
Age: 91 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 10
Died: 1992
Died: December 21
Actress
Drama Teacher
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Manhattan borough
New York City
Beneath
Size
Word
Actors
Understand
Jobs

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In life, as on the stage, it's not who I am but what I do that's the measure of my worth and the secret of my success. All the rest is showiness, arrogance and conceit.
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Life in the theatre isn't necessarily when you get money from performing. It isn't when you sign a contract. It isn't even when you are in a play. It's when you understand it. If you understand it, you'll know why you want to act.
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The best author is a dead author, because he's out of your way and you own the play. Take what he has given you and use it for what you need.
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To grow: that is your deepest and truest need when you say, 'I want to be an actor.'
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You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences.
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When you most succeed, you do so by seeming not to act at all.
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You'll never really be great unless you aim high.
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An addict is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong.
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Today the influences of your society pressure you to be successful before your time. They are pulling you down. They have pulled you down, you big, sweet, magnificent, young, potential artists. They have pulled you down so far that you are on the verge of destruction. Only you don't know it because you want to be a success
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The play is not in the words, it’s in you!
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Your curse is that you have chosen a form that requires endless study .... It means you have to read, you have to observe, you have to think, so that when you turn your imagination on, it has the fuel to do its job.
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Acting can be the healthiest profession in the world, because it allows you to do things you can't do in real life. It allows you to understand more than just what life provides you.
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It's not important to know who you are. It's important to know what you do, and then to do it like hercules!
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It's not enough to have talent. You have to have a talent for your talent.
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The actor must be full of passion. If he's too cool he's better off as the manager of a company, not someone who appears on the stage.
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Our heritage as actors goes back thousands of years, and we have to feel as comfortable in the clothes, and the language of Sophocles as we do in our sneakers.
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The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind.
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Tell yourself that the world is outside, that it's not to be hidden from you, that you are going to thrust yourself forward and be relaxed in the world. You have chosen a field where you're going to be hurt to the blood. But to retreat from the pain is death
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When you stand on the stage you must have a sense that you are addressing the whole world, and that what you say is so important the whole world must listen.
Stella Adler