You've got to keep fighting - you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
— Elia Kazan
I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made.
I don't remember anything anybody said in any Jack Ford picture. Nothing happens except action.
The physical life of the scene is determined by whether the set squeezes people together or whether the set has an escape place in it.
The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.
When you know what an actor has, you can reach in and arouse it. If you don't know what he has, you don't know what the hell is going on.
I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.
I question the value of stars. I think they're overrated. They get too much money, too much praise.
I didn't have that much confidence. Maybe it looks that way. I'm glad it does.
I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.
I may be getting old, but not foolish.
I gave my life to the Group Theatre, because in it I'm building something for myself. What I build, I am.
I was even superior to the Communists and when they didn't go along with me, I quit them.
I was very intense. I think it's a privilege to be an actor.
I was always a self-conscious person.
The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.
I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.
I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.
What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.
I'm going to make a film where not one word is really important. I'm going to make it all action.
Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit.
Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.
The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.
A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.
Our relationship was cursed by the fact that we agreed on everything.
A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.
I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.
For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.
You have to remind people of their own struggles. It's a responsibility.
I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right.
I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.
I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.
I was an outsider... but I was also sympathetic with people that were struggling to get up, because I struggled to get up.
I've lost many of my best friends... I'm going to satisfy myself now, not the critics, not even my friends.
The thing about Brando was that I'd make these directions, and he'd walk away. He'd heard enough... to get the machine going.
You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is.
I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb.
I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.
The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.
The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.
The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.
Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.
Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.
Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.
I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.
You can't just sit there and do the lines. You have to do something revealing or unusual.
I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.
Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.
