When Hazlitt wrote his essay "On Actors and Acting," members of the acting profession were widely regarded as disreputable characters, not accepted in polite society. Female actors had an especially bad reputation and were commonly judged by society as being little better than prostitutes.

In his essay, Hazlitt seeks to challenge such prejudices, and in doing so, he paints a sympathetic portrait of actors and the profession that earned them so much strong public condemnation.

One by one, Hazlitt deals with the most common criticisms leveled at actors and shows them to be misguided. For instance, actors are often accused of being "extravagant and dissipated." Hazlitt defends them from his charge by pointing out that they live a hand-to-mouth existence. When actors go from poverty and luxury, they are unable to make money breed, as Hazlitt puts it, which means that they have no alternative but to spend their earnings. Unsure of their future in a fickle and fiercely competitive profession, they make the most of what they have when they have it.

On the whole, Hazlitt regards actors as being more sinned against than sinful. If actors—or players, as Hazlitt calls them—are not respected, then that's only because the acting profession itself isn't as respected as it ought to be. If actors are the way they are, then it's because of society's prejudices. If the acting profession is disreputable, then society only has itself to blame.