Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If I was in Sydney, I love the beach. Even though I'm incredibly pale, I put on these terribly long unattractive rashies, and people laugh at me. My kids laugh at me. But that's what I would do.
To be an actor you have to have a certain amount of madness in you. That’s why, when people meet you and you seem very together, they are quite surprised - they don’t see you behind closed doors.
One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time.
The ancient Greeks, poets, authors and philosophers all puzzled over the question but nobody really knows what love is - including me. Longing for another person is an exciting mental experience.
I look at everything I’ve done critically - but I think that’s the job of an actor. If you ever sit on your laurels or think that you’re good - in a way, I don’t then think you’re pushing yourself.
I never wore glasses except when I had to read a teleprompter at an awards show or drive, so I didn't notice much. I could exist in my head. It was kind of my escape from the world and my protection.
I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are preceving you.
I love acting but I don't like all of the other stuff associated with it. The interest in celebrities, the press, the Internet, when your identity becomes mixed up in the way people are perceiving you.
Yippee! I can't believe I made it. It feels like a long haul to get here. I'm so fine with it. People want you to have some sort of breakdown, but I'm relieved to be 40 years old, and I've lived a life.
For me, my storyline [in Big Little Lies] is very complicated and nuanced. [The script] was so beautifully written. It was very, very easy to play. ... I think one of the scenes is almost eight minutes.
We worked with Jean-Marc [Vallée] [on Big Little Lies] in terms of finding [style]. Because when you have five women, you're trying to find how they each dress and how they present themselves to the world.
Sometimes your mistakes are you biggest virtues. You learn so much from the mistake. Those things that you think are the worst thing that's happening to you can somehow turn around and be the greatest opportunity.
It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.
I think it's important for me as an actor that I say these are the issues I'm going to be committed to. One of them for me is women and children's health around the world and their rights;the other is ovarian cancer.
I'm a person that carries everything that happened to me in my past, with me into the future. I refuse to let it make me bitter. I still completely believe in love and I remain open to anything that will happen to me.
There's just something about women and shoes, it's the luxury, it's the femininity and it's the attention to detail. You can put a lot of work into your dress but if you have the right shoe and bag then you feel good.
~My instinct is to protect my children from pain. But adversity is often the thing that gives us character and backbone. It's always been a struggle for me to back off and let my children go through difficult experiences.~
I think that the most difficult thing is allowing yourself to be loved, so receiving the love and feeling like you deserve it is a pretty big struggle. I suppose that's what I've learnt recently, to allow myself to be loved.
That goes against what I believe morally. That's adultery, and if I'm accused of that, no, that's not right. I have two kids who see that and remember that and judge me. It didn't happen, and it's not to be reported that way.
I am very shy - really shy - I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness. So I don't like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don't like going to a party by myself.
I would describe myself as emotional and highly strung. If something upsets me, it really upsets me. If something makes me angry, I get really angry. But it's all very upfront. I can't hide it. I'm also loyal and I hope I'm fun.
When falling in love I think you should say to yourself, ‘I am going to do this fully.’ I love to the fullest extent that I possibly can - and why not?... Maybe this means there is going to be pain, but I am willing to accept the pain.
I'm not sure what the future holds but I do know that I'm going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate. As my dad said 'Nic, it is what it is, it's not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is.'
At this time in my life, I want to be giving to my relationships. And out of that, whatever work you do prospers because you have more to give. There's something very primal about giving birth. It puts you in a state of being very raw.
Happiness, that's obviously different for everybody, but what I call my joy, the thing that makes me feel incredibly satiated, is my family, and then I get to go and play out all of my ideas and feelings through all these different characters.
The accumulation of experience gives you a debt in terms of compassion. I am very fortunate, and I feel dedicated to giving back to other women. Wherever I am now, I make sure I visit a women's shelter. But I don't want to do it in a frivolous way.
You've just got to have a sense of respect for the person you have children with. Anger doesn't help anybody. Ultimately you have to say forgiveness is important, and honoring what you had together is important. But it's easy to say and harder to do.
I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.
They've said I'm gay, they've said everyone is gay. I personally don't believe in doing huge lawsuits about that stuff. Tom does. That's what he wants to do, that's what he's going to do. You do not tell Tom what to do. He is a force to be reckoned with.
As a woman now, I want to share things. I have girlfriends in their twenties, and I say, "Ask me anything. You can learn from the things I did wrong, and you can learn from the things you think I'm doing right. Take whatever you want and make it your own."
I was walking around legally blind. Now I have 20-20 vision. I can't believe I spent so many years blurry, but I think that coincides with how I was feeling. Now I notice if people are watching me, but I also smile right back if someone waves, which helps.
My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead.
I didn't do so well in the academic world, so I think the only way I could express myself was through visual art - anything I could get my hands on, whether it was glassblowing, sculpture, painting, or photography. I always wanted to be a painter. Or a farmer.
That sort of detailed filmmaking is one, hard to do and not have it be pretentious, and two, have it tell the story, which is what you're taught, that cinema is the language of images and you really should be able to make a film with no dialogue and tell a story.
There are moments when you feel as if you have been blessed for a while, moments when you think this is perfect, moments when you start to believe that even for an hour, even for a year, it might all happen. So I'm determined to keep making it get better and better.
My mother said I was always an intense child, a very sensitive child. So that probably helped the emotions to be very present. I was just a big thinker. I would evaluate and analyze and feel and cry and discuss and be angry. All of those emotions were very surface for me.
[As a producer] [Big Little Lies] is the stories of women that I know, and it was a way in which we could go to other women and say, "Here's a great role. There's five great roles here. They're all complicated. They all deserve to be told, and are you interested?" And that is rare.
I do research. I do emotional sort of Method work. Somehow it’s a huge mishmash of things that becomes my own acting process and my own way of navigating through something. But ultimately the desire is to be honest, and for that truth to bleed through into your work and onto the screen.
I've just always been interested in how people lead their lives. How they survive in this world. I'm curious about people's damage, and navigating that and the way people forgive. I find it really interesting. That's why we have to transform on a daily basis, work on ourselves. It's work.
I just feel like I'm in the world right now. There have been times when I haven't felt in the world, when I haven't cared whether I was going to be here or not, so my relationship with being on the earth was probably not as intense. And right now, there's an intensity - I want to be here.
In particular, for my character, Celeste [in Big Little Lies], there was a way in which we wanted to present her, because she has sort of barriers that she has to put up for protection because of things that are going on in her life. Yet she wants to be, I suppose, very presentable but neutral.
Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, "What do you want?" Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look great, then thank you. And if you have to have everything washed away, then I'm willing to do that too.
Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, 'What do you want?' Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look great, then thank you. And if you have to have everything washed away, then I'm willing to do that too.
Deep down am I superstitious? No. Do I believe in trying to be as kind as possible and as compassionate as possible because ultimately you're alone with yourself and your own conscience, and you want that to be as clear as possible? That's not superstition. You have to just try and stay pure and know what you value.
As an actor you're only as good as the things you're offered. And there just weren't any female directors offering me things. So when you dissect that, you realize there aren't women offering you things because they don't have the opportunities. I work to raise money for women's cancers; I use my voice for violence against women.
I always try to push through fear. I won't be crippled by it. People say, "Oh you take such risks", or "You're brave." And I'm like, 'Well, if you knew - inside I'm really frightened!' But the way people navigate fear and pain is fascinating... The more you feel, the stronger the pain. And the more you engage in life, the more you have to lose.
If you're intuitive and you have a desire for people to be happy and you want equilibrium and you want life to be good, then you'll worry. But we need to embrace the idea that, "No, I'm putting that aside, over there, in a box. I'll open that box when I wake up in the morning and deal with it then." I really find that men tend to do that, and it's great to be able to do.
I love acting with very little dialogue. As long as it's supported. I mean, in terms of cinema, you can have a great monologue, but if you're not supported by the images ... You can be feeling things and then you see it back, and you're like, "None of that came across." Or the angle of my face gives it a completely different interpretation than what I was trying to communicate.
I always say, when I work with younger actresses, "I'm here." Reese says it, too: "We've lived it. We know things. So if there's anything you want to know." I'm careful not to be the preacher, like, "Now, listen to me!" But I do want to be available. Even in terms of things like finances - where do you learn that, if you don't have people you can ask, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
Have no regrets. Every relationship leads you to where you're meant to be. Learn to be comfortable with being alone. Learn to be comfortable with saying no to people; we put everybody else before ourselves. Read great literature; don't get all your information from TV. Define your moral code - nobody else is going to give you that. Find it yourself. Keep asking questions, keep challenging. You don't have to conform. Rebellion creates character. And, as my mother always said to me, "Don't let anyone break your spirit!"