Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Reality television, anybody can be a star at any minute.
As much as I love being an artist, I love being a mom even more.
I built a career on my archetype, and I'm grateful, but I'm trying to stretch.
The Coens both give you direction, and then it's up to you to kind of figure out the music of what they're saying.
Sometimes I'll say, "When Sandy Bullock and I were doing Speed - the movie, not the drug." Just in case someone's listening.
If you just think Donnie Darkos a weird movie, you don't want to think. You don't want to feel your feelings. So yeah, I do want to shake 'em up.
I love smoking. I miss it every day of my life. If I found out that it didn't cause cancer, I would go out and buy, like, eight cartons right now.
There is nothing like going on a stage. You are in the saddle, and you've got to ride that horse, and there's nothing more thrilling and exhilarating.
I've died so many times in so many movies. What is it about my face that people want to kill it? I'm sure they would've killed Kitty Farmer if they could've!
I grew up around people, so I know 'em, and I do like playin' 'em. I'm not religious, but I am kind of a spiritual fanatic, so maybe I understand them in that way.
I can remember before 'Rain Man,' I just couldn't get in on anything, any features. After that and it winning the Oscar - the next year, I co-starred in six movies.
At Rain Man, I was 38. And before that, I had really just started working when I was 36. I was very late. So I've got time, right? As long as I stay healthy and eat right.
There's always that key to every character that lets you go to those places you need to go to. No matter how much you might hate the character, it makes you understand it.
My daughter's favorite musical is 'Wicked,' which she has seen hundreds of times - she even worked as an usher at the Pantages so she could see it over and over. Her dream is to play Elphaba.
I'm ready to do some classics. Maybe I wasn't in the beginning. I weighed 179 pounds when I got to New York, and I had that thick Southern accent. I still talk Southern, but I can do without it.
When I hit New York in 1972, I thought I was a sprinter. I thought that I would star in a Broadway show and do a movie and win an Oscar by the time I was 25. It turned out that I'm a long distance runner.
I never have compared myself to Jessica Tandy in any way, and that's such a great role model for me to look at. I'm seriously going to put pictures of her in my dressing room and commune with her from now on, I think.
Maybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman's scripts - where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at 'em, and said, "Why won't they be a real actor?" - maybe they just knew their audience. It's too bad.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress, because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
My husband and I can't get through dinner without being defensive. We've been married 24 years, and I love my husband to death, but sometimes I say, "What are we? Two injured creatures who can't talk to each other without going, like, 'Ahhh!'?"
Jessica Tandy. Nice company! And Ruth Gordon. They worked all along. She didn't really get any big star recognition until Driving Miss Daisy. So what if it takes me that long? Slow and steady wins the race, right? Better a tortoise than a hare.
There are several things iconic about Sissy Hickey character - even just sounds. Like, "Awww." People love that sound! "Awww." I actually didn't want to do the role, because I didn't think I looked like a smoker - even though I used to be a smoker.
Tone is a very difficult thing. You can't write tone, I don't think. You can try - you certainly try. I write too, so I know I'm trying desperately to communicate to whoever's going to direct my pieces, the way I see the humor. But it's very difficult.
The fans of 'Speed' are very different from the fans of 'To Wong Foo,' which are different from 'Donnie Darko.' Look at the classics I've been in: 'No Country for Old Men'... 'Little Miss Sunshine'... 'Rain Man' was my first big studio movie! How lucky is that?
I'd much rather insult people and make 'em angry. Donnie Darko's very controversial. Not all of my friends like it. Honestly, it's almost become a test for me. If somebody says they don't like Donnie Darko, I think, "Oh, I don't know you as well as I thought I did."
I was so frustrated with my whole life that I walked up this hilltop and screamed at the heavens. It was very dramatic - but then again, I am an actress - and I said, "Fine! I'll be a character actress! Just tell me what you want me to do!" I was so angry at the universe.
I had this great teacher, Milton Katselas, who was this loud Greek who had directed Bette Davis and Liv Ullmann, and brought Edward Albee to this country. He said, "Why do you keep trying to be a Rolex watch when you're the salt of the earth?" Except he said it much louder.
I never have broken up in comedy, ever. There's something about me that I just don't break on camera - maybe because I'm just so cheap, and I know how expensive it is to shoot - but I broke on Sordid Lives, and I broke on The Office. Those are the only two times in my life.
I thought Sissy Hickey should be really skinny and leathery and have one of those really husky voices, but Del Shores kept saying, "I wrote this part for you." He took me to his house and showed me pictures of all his Texas relatives, and they looked exactly like my family.
I never have broken up in comedy, ever. There's something about me that I just don't break on camera - maybe because I'm just so cheap, and I know how expensive it is to shoot - but I broke on 'Sordid Lives,' and I broke on 'The Office.' Those are the only two times in my life.
My agent says, "You have an audition for the next Dustin Hoffman movie, playing a pioneer woman." And I go, "All right!" I passed Barry Levinson in the hall on the way into my audition, and I saw him do a double-take. I think I looked so determined that I got the job right then.
Everything I've done hasn't worked out - you know, some things aren't as great as others - but I'm having so much fun, who cares? Isn't that what an artist is supposed to do? We're trying to change the world. Otherwise, why be an artist? You want to shake people up and make 'em think.
Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were both so generous to me on the Rain Man set. I remember Tom was in the trailer when I said to the makeup guy, "You know, I would really like to not wear any makeup. I just have this feeling that she wouldn't have any." And Tom said, "Yeah, that's cool!"
I like the line leading up to that: "I made your daughter the lead dancer, and you're not committed!" It's how people in their own little narrow worlds get so bent out of shape over the silliest things. I've seen it all my life, especially growing up in the South - the tempest in a teapot.
Patrick Swayze had done The Outsiders already - he was certainly the star of our class - and for a big, sexy, horseback-ridin' Texan to come over and tell me that I'm beautiful, and look me right in the eye and make me accept that there's a beauty in the characters I play meant so much to me.
One friend said, "Donnie Darko movie was weird!" And I thought, "Hmm. I don't think we're as good of friends as I thought." It's not like I disliked him for it; it just meant we weren't on the same page I thought we were. Because I can't imagine watching that film and not being moved to tears.
Tone is so important because you can have a great script just be ruined with the wrong director - if they shtick it up or something. With 'Little Miss Sunshine,' I was so concerned they weren't going to play the pageant official realistically because you don't have to wink to play those kinds of characters.
I love Child's Play 2! That movie has a great theme: You better listen to children. That's why I wanted to do it. I was scared to do a horror movie - a blatant, studio horror movie - but I liked the script, and I thought that was such an important theme, because I don't think adults listen to children enough.
I think most character people that you talk to, it's like, whatever they offer us, we are thrilled to do. I won't do anything that's immoral or illicit. I did turn down eating a dead body once. I turned down a few really creepy horror movies. For the most part, I can usually find a way into whatever character.
I love Fargo, I love all of them, but Miller's Crossing just happens to be my favorite. When I heard Coen brothers were doing No Country For Old Men, I thought, "This is it. This is their masterpiece. This is going to be the one, because it's going to bring every element together." I just had a feeling about it.
I love Donnie Darko movie so much. Just before I got that script, I had been to see some European art film. I walked out of that movie and said to my husband, "That's what I want to do! I want to do an art film and take it to the edge." Within two weeks, we were getting ready to go on vacation, and my agent called.
It was probably 10 at night when I started to read Donnie Darko. I get in bed and read the first page, and I go, "Hmmm. That's interesting." Second page, "Wow." By the fourth page, my heart started to beat, and I knew. It makes me cry, because I knew I had found a classic film. You just know when you get certain material.
Maybe because All About Steve is about offbeat people, viewers don't want them to be heroes. There is something archetypal in us that we like a leading lady, we like a leading man, and we like people with my features to get killed. Maybe that's why the reviews were so severe - because good Lord, I've seen much worse films!
Frequently over the years, people have thought that they know me. Every character actor has this story, I'm sure. It goes like this: 'Um, do you play soccer?' 'Did you go to such and such church?' 'I knew you when you were with so and so... ' Then I go, 'Well, sorry...' and then they say, 'Wait a minute. Are you an actor?'
I love 'Child's Play 2!' I love Don Mancini. That movie has a great theme: You better listen to children. That's why I wanted to do it. I was scared to do a horror movie - a blatant studio horror movie - but I liked the script, and I thought that was such an important theme because I don't think adults listen to children enough.
I love Maude Pearson character from Agel. I love that she walls her son up because he has a girlfriend! In fact, I have that clip on my reel - her walling him up and saying, "What are you going to do about that streetwalker now? You belong to me! What are you going to do?" And did you know the ghost mom has her own Angel trading card?
Patrick Swayze was risk-taking - because he not only did a transvestite, but in Donnie Darko, he played a pedophile! Talk about a risky thing for a movie star, and he jumped right in. We even shot some of those video sequences of his character out on his ranch. I mean, he opened his heart and his ranch to us. He was just an awesome guy.
To me, All About Steve movie is sweet-natured and sweet-hearted, and I can't get enough sweet-hearted movies. I want to be inspired right now. I think things are pretty tough in the world. And people at the première were loving it - I mean, loving it! So I'm so sorry to hear people saying that it is the worst movie of 2009. I don't buy it at all.
I didn't understand Southland Tales script at all! Is there a single word to describe it? Cacophony? It's celebrity meets pornography meets politics - it's unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. And slapstick humor, communism; I mean, what doesn't it have? It's crazy. I didn't go to Cannes, but I guess the first cut was three and a half hours or something?