Terminology
The first recorded case of an actor performing took place in 534 BC (probably on 23 November, though the changes in calendar over the years make it hard to determine exactly) when the Greek performer Thespis stepped on to the stage at the Theatre Dionysus and became the first known person to speak words as a character in a play or story. Prior to Thespis' act, stories were only known to be told in song and dance and in third person narrative. In honour of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians. Theatrical legend to this day maintains that Thespis exists as a mischievous spirit, and disasters in the theatre are sometimes blamed on his ghostly intervention.
Actors were traditionally not people of high status, and in the Early Middle Ages travelling acting troupes were often viewed with distrust. In many parts of Europe, actors could not even receive a Christian burial, and traditional beliefs of the region and time period held that this left any actor forever condemned. However, this negative perception was largely reversed in the 19th and 20th centuries as acting has become an honored and popular profession and art. Part of the cause is the easier popular access to dramatic film entertainment and the resulting rise of the movie star — as regards both their social status and the salaries they command. and the medieval world, it was considered disgraceful for a woman to go on the stage, and this belief continued right up until the 17th century, when in Venice it was broken. In the time of William Shakespeare, women's roles were generally played by men or boys. The British prohibition was ended in the reign of Charles II who enjoyed watching female actors (actresses) on stage.

History

Techniques

Main article: Acting General
Historically, acting was considered a man's profession; so, in Shakespeare's time, for instance, men and boys played all roles, including the female parts. This was the case until the Restoration of the theater in 1660, the first occurrence of the term actress in the OED being by Dryden in 1700.
In Japan, men (onnagata) took over the female roles in kabuki theatre when women were banned from performing on stage during the Edo period. However, some forms of Chinese drama have females playing all the roles.
Today, women sometimes play the roles of prepubescent boys, because in some regards a woman has a closer resemblance to a boy than does a man. The role of Peter Pan, for example, is traditionally played by a woman. The tradition of the principal boy in pantomime may be compared. An adult playing a child occurs more in theater than in film. The exception to this is voice actors in animated films and television programmes, where boys are generally voiced by women, as heard in The Simpsons where the voice of Bart Simpson is provided by Nancy Cartwright. Opera has several 'pants roles' traditionally sung by women, usually mezzo-sopranos. Examples are Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, and Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro.
Having an actor play the opposite sex for comic effect is also a long standing tradition in comic theatre and film. Most of Shakespeare's comedies include instances of cross-dressing, such as Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and both Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams appeared in hit comedy films where they were required to play most scenes dressed as women. The movie A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum stars Jack Gilford dressing as a young bride, among other slapstick comedy. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon famously posed as women to escape gangsters in the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot. Cross-dressing for comic effect was a frequently used device in most of the thirty Carry On films. Several roles in modern plays and musicals are played by a member of the opposite sex, such as the character "Edna Turnblad" in Hairspray--played by Divine in the original film, Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway musical, and John Travolta in the 2007 movie musical. Sometimes the issue is further complicated through the role of a woman acting as a man pretending to be a woman, like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria or Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love.

As opposite sex

Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, for film
Cannes Film Festival Awards, international French festival for world wide films and documentaries
Golden Globe Awards for film and television
Emmy Awards for television
Genie Awards for Canadian film
Gemini Awards for Canadian television
British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for film and television; also known as BAFTA
Tony Awards for the theatre (specifically, Broadway theatre)
European Theatre Awards for the theatre
Laurence Olivier Awards for the theatre (named in honour of actor Sir Laurence Olivier)
Screen Actors Guild Awards for actors in film and television
Indian National Film Awards for the Indian cinema.
Filmfare Awards honors excellence in the Indian Film Industry (Bollywood) - limited to Hindi language films only.
César Awards for French film
AFI Awards for Australian film.
Berlinale German film festival in Berlin (Golden and Silver Bear)
Piala Citra (Citra Award) for Indonesian film. Acting awards

Acting
Voice Actor
Leading actor
Supporting actor
Character actor
Bit part
Movie star
Celebrity
Pornographic actor
Stunt work
List of male film actors
List of female film actors
Method acting
Presentational acting
Improvisational theatre
Konstantin Stanislavski
Michael Chekhov
Thespis
Vaudeville
Charisma
Q Score Further reading

Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN 0416720609.
Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Ed. Robert Schwartz. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801835062.