An actor is not a machine.

Monroe is explaining why an actor cannot be expected to produce emotions mechanically on command. She describes the vulnerability that enables creative work and the need for solitude. In the next paragraph she contrasts the studio’s demands for discipline with acting as an art, especially when the performer is ill.

A performer’s emotions and limitations are part of the creative process, not defects to be removed so that production can run like machinery.

This is a short excerpt from her argument about creative work, not a fictional character’s line. Another wording beginning with ‘An actress’ and ending with a reference to money circulates separately; this dossier verifies only the exact clause in the checked Meryman transcription.

Work, Emotions, Art

• People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Steve Jobs
• A writer owes nothing except to his writing. Charles Bukowski
• But when you’re famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way.
• That’s the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.
• Without deviation, progress is not possible. Frank Zappa

• theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/14/greatinterviews

Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, interview with Richard Meryman, Marilyn Lets Her Hair Down About Being Famous, LIFE, 3 August 1962; full interview transcription published by The Marilyn Monroe Collection. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/an-actor-is-not-a-machine/ (26 October 2026).

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