More Than a Sex Symbol: I’ve compiled every quote I could find of Marilyn Monroe talking about acting (there are a lot). She cared deeply about her craft. I hope you find reading these as interesting as I did.

​https://ift.tt/3mh3K18 last interview - LIFE Magazine 1962"There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think that most people realize, for a creative person or an actress. It's almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you'll let the whole world in on.""An actor is not a machine, no matter how much they [the studios] want to say we are, we are not. Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.”"I want to be an artist, an actress, with integrity. When I'm older then I'll play... all kinds of parts!""My teacher, Lee Strasberg, has always said to me, you know, when I say ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I’m a little nervous’, and he says ‘when you’re not, give up’. Because nervousness indicates sensitivity.”“I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‘Hi,’ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.”“When I was five I think, that's when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries. It goes beyond house; you could make your own situations and you could pretend, and even if the other kids were a little slow on the imagining part, you could say, ‘Hey, what about if you were such and such, and I were such and such, wouldn't that be fun?’ And they'd say, ‘Oh, yes,’ and then I'd say, ‘Well, that will be a horse and this will be …’ It was play, playfulness. When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be.”Letter to her acting coach - 1961“Work means not merely performing professionally, but to study and truly devote myself. My work is the only trustworthy hope I have.”Screenland Magazine in 1952“I know that some actresses get by for a while with looks and little else. I don’t want to be one of them. I’d like to carve myself a not too large but permanent niche in the acting world. In the months and years ahead, I want to learn everything that is to be learned about acting. I’ll never be a great actress, but if I work hard and believe that what I’m doing is right, perhaps I can become a good one”Struggles with method acting - from her journal"I’m searching for a way to play this part. I am depressed with my whole life since I first remember. How can I be such a gay young hopeful girl. What I am using is that one Sunday when I was fourteen for I was all those things that day. But why can’t I use it more consistently… I must try to work and work on my concentration.”Redbook Magazine interview - 1962“I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometimes that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do. The best way for me to find myself as a person is to prove to myself that I am an actress.”“My work is important to me. It’s the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But now I’m working on the foundation.”Letter to her acting coaches - 1962“The most important thing in my life is my work... The Actors Studio is my home.”“I wonder if you realize what the work has meant to me. Aside from the work as an actress and what you, Lee, call my parts, what it has meant to me as a human being. The studio is for the theatre and for life.”“When I think of home it is New York and the Actors Studio. That is where I can exist in the human race.”My Story by Marilyn Monroe - an unfinished autobiography“My illusions didn’t have anything to do with being a fine actress. I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothing I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn! To change, to improve! I didn’t want anything else. Not men, not money, not love, but the ability to act.”“I couldn’t think of anything - except acting. I knew about acting. It was a way to live in dreams for a few minutes at a time.”“Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion."1957 interview with Tim Connelly"Maybe some actors don’t need a procedure, but I do. I never had any training and I really didn’t know what I was doing in those first movies I made. A lot of people don’t need any reason for doing what they do. I mean actors and just people, but I find I have to have a reason."On the method: "I focus my attention and I make a place for myself."On Stanislavski: "You think of things you’ve felt, people you’ve hated. We'll say you're half-conscious. But everybody has hated somebody, so every actor has a hate to draw on for his acting.”Interview in London for ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ - 1956Reporter: Are you really studying acting?Monroe: Yes. I'm serious about it.Reporter: What inspired you to study acting?Monroe: Seeing my own pictures. [lol]Audio interview for Marie Claire magazine - 1960“If I can realize certain things in my work, I come the closest to being happy, and I can say that also about my life. Sometimes when I’m working and I’ll be able to fulfil a scene truthfully, then I think I’m the happiest.”"I think an artist — uh, ‘Artist’... I consider myself becoming an artist. Some people will laugh. I don’t apologize to you, but to them I apologize (laughs). Sometimes you know, the work is so… You try to be true, and you feel sometimes it’s on the verge of a kind of craziness, but it isn’t really craziness. It’s really getting the truest part of yourself out, and it’s very hard. And yet it can be very simple at the same time."“I want to do the best that I can do in that moment, when the camera starts until it stops. That moment I want to be perfect - as perfect as I can make it. I used to go to movies on Saturday night when I worked in a factory and that was my only time that I could enjoy myself really. I waited all week to go to the movie and I worked hard for the money that I spent, if I went to a movie and it was a bad movie or I thought people didn't do their best I really was mad when I left, cause then I didn’t have anything to go on for a whole week! So I always feel that I work for the ones that work hard, and they go to the box office and they put down their money and they want to be entertained. I always feel like I’m doing it for them. I do care because I know how the others feel.”Radio interview - 1955“The thing I’d like the most is to become a real actress. I remember when I was a kid sitting in the front row at the movies on Saturday afternoon — and I would never come out of the movie, they’d have to come and get me and I’d sit in the front row — and I’d think how wonderful it would be to be an actress. But I didn’t really realize about acting, except I appreciated what I saw. Bad, good, didn’t matter. I enjoyed it very much, everything that I would see, anything that would move on the screen. However, I think I realize more and more the responsibility — and it is a responsibility… So as I say, I would like to be a good actress!”1955 New Year ResolutionsMust have the discipline to do the following –z – go to class – my own always – without failx – go as often as possible to observe Strasberg’s other private classesg – never miss actor’s studio sessionsv – work whenever possible – on class assignments – and always keep working on the acting exercisesu – start attending Clurman lectures – also Lee Strasberg’s directors lectures at theater wing – enquire about bothl – keep looking around me – only much more so – observing – but not only myself but others and everything – take things (it) for what they (it’s) are worthy – must make strong effort to work on current problems and phobias that out of my past has arisen – making much much much more more more more more effort in my analisis [sic]. And be there always on time – no excuses for being ever late.w – if possible – take at least one class at university – in literature –o – follow RCA thing through.p – try to find someone to take dancing from – body work (creative)t – take care of my instrument – personally & bodily (exercise) try to enjoy myself when I can – I’ll be miserable enough as it is.The Method - from her journal“The truth can only be recalled, never invented.”Letter to her acting coach“You once said, the first time I heard you talk at the actors studio that “there is only concentration between the actor and suicide”. As soon as I walk into a scene I lose my mental relaxation for some reason… I get before [sic] camera and my concentration and everything I'm trying to learn leaves me. Then I feel like I'm not existing in the human race at all.”Interview circa 1956“Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work. I’m more serious about that than anything."The Scrantonian Sun - 1951“I am naturally shy, and I was so frightened when I first started to act that the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I was so impossible that after I finished school on the 20th lot I was fired.I had never met Darryl Zannuck, so when I came back to 20th he sent for me. He said, 'So you were fired? I didn’t even know you were here.’ I told Mr Zanuck I should have been fired. I was no good. I was so scared I couldn’t do a thing. But now I have studied voice and I have worked very hard. I was also fired from Columbia after six months.I think maybe if other girls know how bad I was when I started they will be encouraged. I finally made up my mind I wanted to be an actress and I was not going to let my lack of confidence ruin my chance.”Notes taken during acting class (too many of these exist to add them all)“Compulsive behaviour should be done away with - change and use will.The will to remain in command meaning that I can use what I pick.”The Australian Women's Weekly - 1955“I knew nothing about acting. I had never read a book about it, or discussed it with anyone. I was ashamed to tell the few people I knew of what I was dreaming. I said I was hoping to make a living as a model. I called on all the model agencies and found a job now and then. But there was this secret in me - acting. It was like being in jail and looking at a door that said ‘This Way Out’”.Saturday Evening Post - 1956"For the first time I'm learning to use myself fully as an actress. I want to add something to what I had before. I want to be in the kind of pictures where I can develop, not just wear tights. Some people thought that they were getting their money's worth when they saw me in The Seven Year Itch, but in the future I want people to get even more for their money when they see me. Only today a taxi driver said to me, 'Why did they ever put you in that little stinker, River of No Return?'I thought it was a good question. I'm with that taxi driver. He's my boy. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't accept River of No Return today. I think that I deserve a better deal than a Z cowboy movie, in which the acting finishes third to the scenery and CinemaScope. The studio was CinemaScope-concious then, and that meant that it pushed the scenery instead of actors and actresses. One of the things about leaving Hollywood and coming to New York and attending the Actor's Studio was that I felt that I could be more myself. After all, if I can't be myself, who can I be?" via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3E9wj6P