Actors Wisdom Quotes

You must become the producer, director and actor in the unfolding story of your life.

The most talented people are always the nicest.

All the screen cowboys behaved like real gentlemen. They didn't drink, they didn't smoke. When they knocked the bad guy down, they always stood with their fists up, waiting for the heavy to get back on his feet. I decided I was going to drag the bad guy to his feet and keep hitting him.

When you most succeed, you do so by seeming not to act at all.

People never forget two things, their first love and the money they wasted watching a bad movie.

Audience can live without a movie but a movie cannot live without an audience.

We all are actors of our own destiny, some good and evil, some beautiful and others just ugly.

All the world's a stage, and most of us are desperately under-rehearsed.

I began my comedy as its only actor, and I come to the end of it as its only spectator.

I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that ‘actors are great liars.’ If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be ‘actors are terrible liars,’ because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.

Remember that the expressions and vocal patterns you are committing to film will become synecdoches... That means something little that stands in for something big. Your smile will stand in for all human happiness. Your tears will be a model for everyone else's sadness. ...You have a responsibility to the people who will repeat your lines, wink your winks, imitate your laughter without knowing they are imitating anything. This is the secret power that actors hold. It is almost like being a god. We create what it is to be human when we stand fifty feet tall on a silk screen. So you'd better be good at it, for God's sake.

Don't wear green in your dressing room,' suggested Miss Spink. 'Or mention the Scottish play," added Miss Forcible.

The problem nowadays is that, by and large, we do a pretty bad job of picking role models. We glorify actors, singers, athletes, and generic “celebrities,” only to be disappointed when—predictably—it turns out that their excellence at reciting, singing, playing basketball, or racking up Facebook likes and Twitter followers has pretty much nothing to do with their moral fiber.

Life is a wave of love for a lover, a gift for a giver, a drama for an actor, and a canvas for a painter.

Singers, actors or artists who touch on sorrow are trying to give comfort to aggrieved souls by giving some meaning to their sorrows.

Make films that purify the soul with the flow of rational, vigorous and compassionate thinking.

I'm like a circus standing on two legs.

Authenticity is closely related to the voice. The word personality has two different meanings. It is derived from the persona, a mask Greek actors wore to dramatize more clearly the role they were playing. On the other hand, the word persona means “by sound,” per sona. The authentic person can be recognized behind the mask by the sound of his voice. The voice is a major avenue of self-expression, and its quality reflects the richness and resonance of the inner being. When one's voice is limited because of neck and throat tensions, one's self-expression is restricted and one's being is reduced.

The Majors are the preachers, teachers and wisdom keepers, The Minors are your everyday highs, your lows, your woes and what grows, while the Courts are the actors, the players and the trouble makers.

Use filmmaking for a greater purpose, than to just entertain some drowsy minds. Wake the whole world up with your movies. It has been sleeping for long. Its eternal sleep has become its darkest nemesis. Now is the time to wake it up.

To-morrow re than an illusion. It’s like a poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning.

The majority do not desire the world—knowing on some primitive level that it disappoints. They are quite content to let the blind few pursue their path to wisdom. And to watch those trapped by genius forced to sacrifice themselves, and those trapped by talent to emulate them. Much better to be in the audience, watching the actors find the surprise ending.

Cupid's bloody bow is strung with a million hearts, wisdom bought at a terrible price, and love laid to rest on the river of Time.

Breathe deep... The rain falls but a moment, and in a moment, gives life to another day.

A Film has the potential to kindle such a spark of inspiration in an individual that it can alter the course of human progress.

Entertain, but also, give the viewer something to think about.

Creativity without discipline will struggle, creativity with discipline will succeed.

Give people films, they will forget after a few weeks, but give people ideas, they will assimilate them into their consciousness.

The reason why we get the same partners is not because people are the same, but because we pull the dark shadow of past hurts over our eyes and we live the same all over again. We change the actors, but never the masks we give them in our play.

Nobody is listening to you. Your dialogue is just a cue for them to say their dialogue, and act their part. If everyone plays their part well, you feel that it’s all real. Be grateful to the bad actors who ruined this illusion for you and turned you inward.

Ignorance is the world's oldest prison, fear is the world's oldest slave master, envy is the world's oldest poison, desire is the world's oldest fuel, curiosity is the world's oldest scholar, conscience is the world's oldest preacher, karma is the world's oldest judge, time is the world's oldest healer, destiny is the world's oldest prophet, truth is the world's oldest sage, courage is the world's oldest warrior, love is the world's oldest angel, joy is the world's oldest medicine, intelligence is the world's oldest professor, light is the world's oldest mirror, eternity is the world's oldest vault, knowledge is the world's oldest tree, wisdom is the world's oldest fountain, nature is the world's oldest clock, reality is the world's oldest portrait, darkness is the world's oldest curtain, stars are the world's oldest lamps, the sky is the world's oldest blanket, the Earth is the world's oldest bedroom, life is the world's oldest theatre, fate is the world's oldest conductor, people are the world's oldest actors, angels are the world's oldest spectators, and God is the world's oldest theatre owner.

When singers, actors or artists touch on sorrow, they are trying to give comfort to aggrieved souls by giving some meaning to their sorrows. The job of the singer, actor or artists ,in general, is to make us comfortable with our feelings or emotions―be it pain, hurt, anger, hatred, sadness, pleasure, love, cheerfulness or joy.

I spent hours apart by myself, taking stock of where I stood, mentally, on this my thirtieth birthday. It came to me queerly how, four years ago, I had meant to be a general and knighted, when thirty. Such temporal dignities were now in my grasp, only that my sense of falsity of the Arab position had cured me of crude ambition: while it left me craving for good repute among men. This craving made me profoundly suspect my truthfulness to myself. Only too good an actor could so impress his favorable opinion. Here were the Arabs believing me, Allenby and Clayton trusting me, my bodyguard dying for me: and I began to wonder if all established reputations were founded, like mine, on fraud.

In all of time, all of space, there will only be one you. How can you be anything but perfect? As you are. Mad, sad, glad. You are amazing.

Donald Coggan’s wisdom: “When true preaching takes place, the main actor is not the preacher, nor the congregation, but the Holy Spirit.”15

Life is not a movie, and that is why you must never tolerate actors who come in the name of love yet are filled with too many lies.

Take the clapper and become the alarm that the world so desperately needs.

Whatever genre you deem suitable for your taste – romance, comedy, action, mystery, sci-fi or anything else, make sure it has the plain everyday human kindness.

Filmmaking has the power to fortify the feeble, unify the divided, raise the abandoned and inspire the ignorant.

Use filmmaking to eliminate racism – use to it terminate misogyny – use it to destroy homophobia and all other primitiveness.

Actors are rotten, not parts.

Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound. You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness is blown out of shape. You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous beyond all reason. You overdo liturgy, and you turn into a ham actor. Overdo your love of music, and you play corn. Love of wisdom leads to wise contriving. Love of knowledge leads to faultfinding. If men would stay as they really are, taking or leaving these eight delights would make no difference. But if they will not rest in their right state, the eight delights develop like malignant tumors. The world falls into confusion. Since man honour these delights, and lust after them, the world has gone stone-blind. When the delight is over, they still will not let go of it: they surround its memory with ritual worship, they fall on their knees to talk about it, play music and sing, fast and discipline themselves in honour of the eight delights. When the delights become a religion, how can you control them?

We do not talk about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people—actors and the like—who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects.

leadership on virtue can never come from the major political actors; it will have to come from a movement of people, such as the people of a town who come together and agree to create moral coherence across the many areas of children’s lives.

During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show. Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I’d post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable “push-back,” or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click “like” and “share” so readily? One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all “like” Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can recite our favorite lines. Indeed, we all can quote Yoda, and we all have tried out our best impression of him. When someone posts a meme of Yoda, many immediately share it, not just because they think it is funny (though it usually is — it’s hard to go wrong with the Master), but because it says something about the sharer. It’s shorthand for saying, “This little guy made a huge impact on me, not sure what it is, but for certain a huge impact. Did it make one on you, too? I’m clicking ‘share’ to affirm something you may not know about me. I ‘like’ Yoda.” And isn’t that what sharing on Facebook is all about? It’s not simply that the sharer wants you to snortle or “LOL” as it were. That’s part of it, but not the core. At its core is a statement about one’s belief system, one that includes the wisdom of Yoda. Other eminently shareable icons included beloved Tolkien characters, particularly Gandalf (as played by the inimitable Sir Ian McKellan). Gandalf, like Yoda, is somehow always above reproach and unfailingly epic. Like Yoda, Gandalf has his darker counterpart. Gollum is a fan favorite because he is a fallen figure who could reform with the right guidance. It doesn’t hurt that his every meme is invariably read in his distinctive, blood-curdling rasp. Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones. But seriously, there is something about the brooding, misunderstood and “chaotic-good” nature of this superhero that touches all of our hearts.

The received wisdom in advanced capitalist societies is that there still exists an organic “civil society sector” in which institutions form autonomously and come together to manifest the interests and will of citizens. The fable has it that the boundaries of this sector are respected by actors from government and the “private sector,” leaving a safe space for NGOs and nonprofits to advocate for things like human rights, free speech, and accountable government. This sounds like a great idea. But if it was ever true, it has not been for decades. Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by free-market statism, transforming “civil society” into a buyer’s market for political factions and corporate interests looking to exert influence at arm’s length. The last forty years have seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy.

Harry Emerson Fosdick could write a book called On Being a Real Person, which translated literally is, “How to be a genuine fake,” because in the old sense, the person is the role, the part played by the actor. But if you forget that you are the actor, and think you are the person, you have been taken in by your own role. You are “en-rolled,” or bewitched, spellbound, enchanted.

They tell us not to follow the stars and that it is blasphemous but the same people tell us the story of Three Wise Men that found the Son of Suns by following the same stars. We should learn that following those tiny lights that protest total darkness and smile at the moon no matter her mood, is the route to sunrise. Those lights are the seedlings of your own faith in tomorrow... (Screenplay)

Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright—if a short play, then it’s short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play the beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned you. That selection belongs to another.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 17

If we are as free as we like to believe, then it makes sense that we are free to choose who we want to be. And then we set out into the world to acquire the knowledge, the wisdom, and the experience we need in order to become the painters, the dancers, the actors, the writers we have always dreamed of being. We need a reason for everything we do in life. Artists are guided by passion, by the need to create. And our emotions and dreams are amplified by our art. Whether a conscious decision or not, in order to be an artist, one has to create art.

Now you know that all the acting you did your whole life was really for nothing because nobody perceives you the way you want to be perceived. You can see that all the drama that happens in your movie isn’t really noticed by anybody around you. It’s obvious that everybody’s attention is focused on their own movie. They don’t even notice when you’re sitting right beside them in their theater! The actors have all their attention on their story, and that is the only reality they live in. Their attention is so hooked by their own creation that they don’t even notice their own presence—the one who is observing their movie.

In essence we are pure desire. That desire is an expression of a moment and that moment becomes a series of moments we call life. Suspended on the hands of an evanescent ticking. Pending on the beat of a vein woven drum. Fragile and fleeting. Ever mysterious and expanding. My outer life was full. My inner life was like rampant Boston ivy and aspects of my soul were more akin to cities than archetypes. Deluged with words and pulses, in poetry I am but the result of all those who came before me. I represent more than I am able to comprehend. My expression is the result of all those who slain me and all those who heal me. Thank you differently and the same, for the hues of my emotional palette only deepened and multiplied like the cells of some thousand galaxies. Pent, it was time for my expression to vent.

Lovers of God possess intense concentration. In prayer their attention rivets itself so completely onto God that nothing can tear it away. Even a suggestion of the divine may draw them into a higher state of consciousness. Occasionally this can be somewhat inconvenient. Sri Ramakrishna once went to see a religious drama produced by his disciple. The curtain went up and a character started singing the praises of the Lord. Sri Ramakrishna immediately began to enter the supreme state of consciousness. The stage faded; the actors and actresses faded. As only a great mystic can, he uttered a protest: "I come here, Lord, to see a play staged by my disciple, and you send me into ecstasy. I won't let it happen!" And he started saying over and over, "Money... money...money," so as to keep some awareness of the temporal world.

One athlete does not make a team. One singer does not make a band. One actor does not make an ensemble. One participant does not make a contest. One employee does not make a company. One stroke does not make a portrait. One word does not make an essay. One paragraph does not make a thesis. One note does not make a symphony. One instrument does not make an orchestra. One finger does not make a hand. One toe does not make a foot. One lip does not make a voice. One member does not make a body. One cell does not make a being. One memory does not make an experience. One habit does not make a character. One act does not make a destiny. One day does not make a year. One moment does not make a lifetime. One man does not make a family. One home does not make a neighborhood. One clan does not make nation. One tribe does not make a continent. One people does not make a world.

Once again, I had traversed the line from doctor to patient, from actor to acted upon, from subject to direct object. My life up until my illness could be understood as the linear sum of my choices. As in most modern narratives, a character’s fate depended on human actions, his and others. King Lear’s Gloucester may complain about human fate as “flies to wanton boys,” but it’s Lear’s vanity that sets in motion the dramatic arc of the play. From the Enlightenment onward, the individual occupied center stage. But now I lived in a different world, a more ancient one, where human action paled against superhuman forces, a world that was more Greek tragedy than Shakespeare. No amount of effort can help Oedipus and his parents escape their fates; their only access to the forces controlling their lives is through the oracles and seers, those given divine vision. What I had come for was not a treatment plan—I had read enough to know the medical ways forward—but the comfort of oracular wisdom.

In graduate school he’d had a teacher who had told him that the best actors are the most boring people. A strong sense of self was detrimental, because an actor had to let the self disappear; he had to let himself be subsumed by a character. “If you want to be a personality, be a pop star,” his teacher had said. He had understood the wisdom of this, and still did, but really, the self was what they all craved, because the more you acted, the further and further you drifted from who you thought you were, and the harder and harder it was to find your way back. Was it any wonder that so many of his peers were such wrecks? They made their money, their lives, their identities by impersonating others—was it a surprise, then, that they needed one set, one stage after the next, to give their lives shape? Without them, what and who were they? And so they took up religions, and girlfriends, and causes to give them something that could be their own: they never slept, they never stopped, they were terrified to be alone, to have to ask themselves who they were. (“When an actor talks and there’s no one to hear him, is he still an actor?” his friend Roman had once asked. He sometimes wondered.)

Part of the problem is the extraordinary place that economics currently holds in the social sciences. In many ways it is treated as a kind of master discipline. Just about anyone who runs anything important in America is expected to have some training in economic theory, or at least to be familiar with its basic tenets. As a result, those tenets have come to be treated as received wisdom, as basically beyond question (one knows one is in the presence of received wisdom when, if one challenges some tenet of it, the first reaction is to treat one as simply ignorant—“You obviously have never heard of the Laffer Curve”; “Clearly you need a course in Economics 101”—the theory is seen as so obviously true that no one exposed to it could possibly disagree). What’s more, those branches of social theory that make the greatest claims to “scientific status”—“rational choice theory,” for instance—start from the same assumptions about human psychology that economists do: that human beings are best viewed as self-interested actors calculating how to get the best terms possible out of any situation, the most profit or pleasure or happiness for the least sacrifice or investment—curious, considering experimental psychologists have demonstrated over and over again that these assumptions simply aren’t true.2

Absorbingly articulate and infinitely intelligent . . . There is nothing pop about Kahneman's psychology, no formulaic story arc, no beating you over the head with an artificial, buzzword -encrusted Big Idea. It's just the wisdom that comes from five decades of honest, rigorous scientific work, delivered humbly yet brilliantly, in a way that will forever change the way you think about thinking:' -MARIA POPOVA, The Atlantic "Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, mar- velously readable guide to spotting-and correcting-our biased misunder- standings of the world:' -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The ramifications of Kahneman's work are wide, extending into education, business, marketing, politics ... and even happiness research. Call his field 'psychonomics: the hidden reasoning behind our choices. Thinking, Fast and Slow is essential reading for anyone with a mind:' -KYLE SMITH,NewYorkPost "A stellar accomplishment, a book for everyone who likes to think and wants to do it better." - E. JAMES LIEBERMAN ,Libraryfournal "Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality:' -CHRISTOPHER SHEA , The Washington Post "A tour de force .. . Kahneman's book is a must-read for anyone interested in either human behavior or investing. He clearly shows that while we like to think of ourselves as rational in our decision making, the truth is we are subject to many biases. At least being aware of them will give you a better chance of avoiding them, or at least making fewer of them:' -LARRY SWEDROE, CBS News "Brilliant .. . It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahne- man's contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose. He stands among the giants, a weaver of the threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most important psycholo- gist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of hap pi- ness and well-being ... A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused

#1 of 2 Leah munched another chip as she watched a couple on-screen race madly away from men with guns who were intent on killing them. She and Seth sat shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, both slumped down until they were practically lying on their backs. Seth had pulled the matching ottoman up against the sofa, so it really did feel as if they were lying in bed together, watching a movie. She slid him a covert glance. He had donned black cargo pants and a black T-shirt after his shower but had left his big feet bare. He had also left his hair loose. It now spilled over the back of the sofa in a glossy curtain, the thick wavy tresses still drying. He chuckled at something the male protagonist said. Leah smiled. She loved seeing him laugh. She didn’t think he did so as often as he should. Every once in a while, she noticed his gaze would slide to her legs. Her feet were propped on the ottoman close to his. The robe she had borrowed had parted just above her knees and fallen back, leaving most of her legs bare. And that pale flesh repeatedly drew Seth’s attention. She held the bag of chips out to him. Smiling, unaware that the faint golden light of desire illuminated his eyes, he poked his hand in and drew out a couple of chips. She smiled back, then returned her attention to the screen. The protagonists had at last made it to safety. They checked each other over for wounds, something both had miraculously escaped incurring in true Hollywood fashion. Then they fell into each other’s arms, finally giving in to the lust that had sparked between them ever since their first contentious meeting. Leah sighed as she watched them peel each other’s clothes off with eager hands. It made her want to do the same with Seth. Her body even began to respond as her imagination kicked in. “I miss sex.” The words were out of her mouth before she could question the wisdom of speaking them. “I do, too,” Seth confessed. She glanced over at him and found his eyes glued to the screen. More so since I met you. Her eyes widened when his voice sounded in her head. “Really?” “Yes.” The actors on-screen fell naked onto the bed and began to simulate sex, their moans and groans and cries of passion filling the room. “It’s natural to miss it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Nothing to feel guilty about.” “No. I mean, you really miss it more since you met me?” He froze. A look of dismay crossed his features as he cut her a glance. “I said that out loud?” “No. I heard it in my head.” Sh**. She grinned. “I heard that, too.” F**k.

In the Old Testament, Israelites persisted in ascribing to hand carved idols powers and abilities that only God retains. In our day, we provide to actors and sports figures, not only mega wealth, we also ascribe wisdom to these human idols. We listen attentively to the political and governmental views of people who are paid to be something they are not. Voters are actually swayed in determining how they vote by what an actor or sports figure may say, or whom he or she may endorse. We are “mad upon our idols.

The four craftsmen were God’s answer to the four horns that had attempted to scatter His people. Those committed to skillful wisdom (artistic expression) will dismantle the strongholds of abusive power. Not only will they overcome them in a military sense, they will terrify supernatural and counterfeit powers to their core! This is the mission and outcome for entering God’s Last Days strategy of infiltrating the world system with skillful wisdom—wisdom from above. Craftsmen are not simply woodworkers and painters. Nor does that title belong only to actors and musicians.

The people around us seem to be dressed in every kind of clothing from every nation and era in human history. I see people dressed in modern military uniforms, animal skins, togas, tribal regalia, European and Japanese armor, robes, breeches, long dresses, short dresses, and suits. Some people wear not much clothing at all. It's as though we're on the back lot of a movie studio and actors from a hundred different exotic movies mingle together. But these people are real, not costumed performers.

Every win I have is a win for those of us who did - and do not - sit at the cool kids lunch table. Who have spent their lives as the lone wolf circling the fire, hoping to feel it's warmth. This one's for you.

Being yourself is the simplest role of an actor

Always remember people with limitations will attempt to put their limitations on you. People who operate on a positive, encouraging, inclusive level within their own life will never tell you that you are not good enough.

You don't always keep on the top", she began again. "My life, my career has been like a roller coaster. I've either been an enormous success or just a down-and-out failure, which is silly because everybody always asks me, 'How does it feel to make a comeback?' And I don't know where I've been! I haven't been away." She paused, and Vangkilde waited. "It's lonely and cold on the top...lonely and cold," she said very quietly.

Dear Daughter, In this world, you are the main actor in the life you have. Do not act as an extra. You need to take the lead. Live your life in a meaningful way.

Just like Adam and Eve, you've got choices. Dating is an apple-sorting bonanza. You're after the golden delicious, not the rotten Granny Smith. But beware, some apples are Oscar-worthy actors, all shiny on the outside but a letdown once you sink your teeth in. It's a fruit salad of chance, so brace yourself and take that first bite.

We came to earth to fulfill certain roles or characters, so that future actors and actresses can gain knowledge and insight from the experiences of those who came before them.

Think of life as a drama workshop. When you go out into the world, everyone is an actor dressed up for their part. Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear. Do right, and fear no one. Always do right and be just in your actions and deeds. The hardest adversity you will face in life is your intuition. It is your source for wisdom, trust in yourself, and trust in your gut feelings.

Remember that you are an actor in a play that is determined by the Playwright.

Healthy entertainment does not evoke raw emotions in the mind of a viewer only to make them wreak havoc, rather it guides those emotions in a healthy direction.

Healthy entertainment is a beautiful blend of stimuli that can connect with the viewer at a sentimental level, then sow the seeds of a certain idea or feed the mind with inspiration and courage. In short, healthy entertainment does not evoke raw emotions in the mind of a viewer only to make them wreak havoc, rather it guides those emotions in a healthy direction. This leads to not only an entertained viewer, but also an inspired soul. And that should be the purpose of film-making, and indeed the entire entertainment industry, rather than feeding the general population with garbage.

The craft of acting dismantles the realms of private personal space and shows human nature for what it truly is; simple and fragile

An artist who works from impulse creates pathways for his body and emotion; the lines will naturally ride on waves of his or her emotion or sometimes get drowned in it

One thing he'd learned in ten years on the New York Stage was this: don't make friends with the man who plays Hamlet; make friends with the man who pays Hamlet.

57. DO WE AGE BECAUSE WE ARE BORED? I think we may age because we do not have enough external stimulation in our environment. We are repeating a life pattern that does not require us to explore new possibilities. Our brains are not required to analyze and think about the projects which confront us. Even our bodies fall into a repetitive way of operating. We don’t have to go to new places or be led into new physical activities. I guess we are always confronted with these necessary choices between security and stimulation. Some of us cannot resist stimulation, others inertia.

I always notice the people with generous hearts. Those who are kind and support people who can't do anything for their career.

I always notice the generous people in this business. Those who are kind and supportive of people who can't do anything for their career.

I really admire people in the public eye, who have affluence and celebrity, who give back, who take a stand and take action. When you have been blessed with abundance and a platform and you bring attention to a cause, or do something to help the world, those are the people who inspire me.

IDENTITY CLUE 9: “THEY ARE MAD UPON THEIR IDOLS”            “…for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols” (Jeremiah 50:38b)            What is America’s currently most watched television program? Is it NBC News? Or ‘In Touch Ministries’ with Dr. Charles Stanley? No, and really, it could not have been more appropriately named. AMERICAN IDOL draws more viewers than any other television program, week after week. In the most recent season over 624,000,000 votes were cast. In the Old Testament, Israelites persisted in ascribing to hand carved idols powers and abilities that only God retains. In our day, we provide to actors and sports figures, not only mega wealth, we also ascribe wisdom to these human idols. We listen attentively to the political and governmental views of people who are paid to be something they are not. Voters are actually swayed in determining how they vote by what an actor or sports figure may say, or whom he or she may endorse. We are “mad upon our idols.

The art of filmmaking is the most influential form of art that has ever existed throughout the history of human artistic endeavors.

A movie is not a movie, it is a potential nuclear furnace of inspiration, courage and conscience.

Make movies my friend – make nice, inspiring and bold movies that will penetrate the darkest corners of the human mind and illuminate the soul.

The Actor's Prayer Great Baachus, spare us from the demon Rejection! And harsh critics, incompetent make-up artists, ill-fitting costumes, tight shoes, screaming children, corpsing and a visit from the welfare officer.

Stage footlights have sent many tumbling, the prepared and unprepared, to suckle at the bosom of Madame Obscurité.

Creation is light and shadow both, else no picture is possible. The good and evil of maya must ever alternate in supremacy. If joy were ceaseless here in this world, would man ever desire another? Without suffering, he scarcely cares to recall that he has forsaken his eternal home. Pain is a prod to remembrance. The way of escape is through wisdom. The tragedy of death is unreal; those who shudder at it are like an ignorant actor who dies of fright on the stage when nothing more has been fired at him than a blank cartridge. My sons are children of light; they will not sleep forever in delusion.

I keep pretending to be all of those images, and from years and years of practice, I become a great actor. If I have a broken heart, I tell myself, “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t care.” I am lying. I am pretending. I could almost win an Academy Award for my performance. What a character, what a drama! And I could say that the drama of my life begins when I agree that I am not good enough — when I hear my teachers, my family, the television tell me, “Miguel, you have to be this way,” but I am not.

With the stakes as high as they are, I can no longer separate my professional voice with my activism. Our voices are desperately needed to create change.

When plans were made to put Dragnet on television, Webb ignored the wisdom of the time and prepared to use radio people, including Yarborough, in key roles. The question of the day, whenever radio people were considered for TV roles, was often cruelly blunt—will he look right? Webb answered it bluntly for Radio Life: “I’ll take the actor and he’ll look right.” One Dragnet TV show was shot with Yarborough as Romero, a preseries special, aired on NBC’s Chesterfield Sound-Off Time Dec. 16, 1951. Then Yarborough died suddenly, leaving a void on both Dragnets that was impossible to fill.

One of the most important – and sudden – changes in politics for several decades has been the move from a world of information scarcity to one of overload. Available information is now far beyond the ability of even the most ordered brain to categorise into any organising principle, sense or hierarchy. We live in an era of fragmentation, with overwhelming information options. The basics of what this is doing to politics is now fairly well-trodden stuff: the splintering of established mainstream news and a surge of misinformation allows people to personalise their sources in ways that play to their pre-existing biases.5 Faced with infinite connection, we find the like-minded people and ideas, and huddle together. Brand new phrases have entered the lexicon to describe all this: filter bubbles, echo chambers and fake news. It’s no coincidence that ‘post-truth’ was the word of the year in 2016. At times ‘post-truth’ has become a convenient way to explain complicated events with a simple single phrase. In some circles it has become a slightly patronising new orthodoxy to say that stupid proles have been duped by misinformation on the internet into voting for things like Brexit or Trump. In fact, well-educated people are in my experience even more subject to these irrationalities because they usually have an unduly high regard for their own powers of reason and decision-making.* What’s happening to political identity as a result of the internet is far more profound than this vote or that one. It transcends political parties and is more significant than echo chambers or fake news. Digital communication is changing the very nature of how we engage with political ideas and how we understand ourselves as political actors. Just as Netflix and YouTube replaced traditional mass-audience television with an increasingly personalised choice, so total connection and information overload offers up an infinite array of possible political options. The result is a fragmentation of singular, stable identities – like membership of a political party – and its replacement by ever-smaller units of like-minded people. Online, anyone can find any type of community they wish (or invent their own), and with it, thousands of like-minded people with whom they can mobilise. Anyone who is upset can now automatically, sometimes algorithmically, find other people that are similarly upset. Sociologists call this ‘homophily’, political theorists call it ‘identity politics’ and common wisdom says ‘birds of a feather flock together’. I’m calling it re-tribalisation. There is a very natural and well-documented tendency for humans to flock together – but the key thing is that the more possible connections, the greater the opportunities to cluster with ever more refined and precise groups. Recent political tribes include Corbyn-linked Momentum, Black Lives Matter, the alt-right, the EDL, Antifa, radical veganism and #feelthebern. I am not suggesting these groups are morally equivalent, that they don’t have a point or that they are incapable of thoughtful debate – simply that they are tribal.

Youre mind is powerful. Use it wisely.

Consider, for example, in Pinker’s elegant exposition, the importance of the ‘cultural arbiter’ as a conduit of ideological change. Traditionally, in days gone by, such arbiters would typically have been clergymen. Or philosophers. Or poets. Or even, in some cases, monarchs. Today, however, with society becoming ever more secularised, and with the exponential expansion of an infinitely virtual universe, they’re a different breed entirely: pop stars, and actors, and media and video-game moguls, who, rather than disseminating the dictates of dignity, now offer them up on an altar of creative psychopathy.