Quotes by Stella Adler

About Stella Adler:

Stella Adler was an American actress and acclaimed acting teacher. She founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and Los Angeles with long-time protégée Joanne Linville, who continues to teach Adler's technique. Her grandson Tom Oppenheim now runs the school in New York City, which has produced alumni such as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Elaine Stritch, Kate Mulgrew, Kipp Hamilton, and Jenny Lumet.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You should want to act only because you want to be led to something bigger in life.

Stella Adler

Be innocent, wise and ninety-five.

Stella Adler

You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.

Stella Adler

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.

Stella Adler

...actors today think that being true is being nice, or being some other "set" thing. That is not the truth. That is your miserable habit of boring everybody to death.

Stella Adler

The imagination is closer to the actor than real life-more agreeable, more comfortable.

Stella Adler

The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.

Stella Adler

You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences.

Stella Adler

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

Your talent is in your choice.

Stella Adler

The play is not in the words, it's in you!

Stella Adler

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

Stella Adler

The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.

Stella Adler

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

Stella Adler

One way we can enliven the imagination is to push it toward the illogical. We're not scientists. We don't always have to make the logical, reasonable leap.

Stella Adler

The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time.

Stella Adler

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.

Stella Adler

Author Bio

  • NameStella Adler
  • DescriptionAmerican actress and teaching coach
  • BornFebruary 10, 1901
  • DiedDecember 21, 1992
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionActor; Film Actor; Stage Actor