Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think of myself as Mirren rather than Mironova, absolutely. I am a Brit, really. I mean when I go to Russia and I do have, maybe it's a romantic fantasy. You know us actors, we're very good at romantic fantasies.
There's a part of me that wants to look nice and occasionally wants to be snappy, and the other part of me that just wants to wear the same sweater until I die. And I'm in constant conflict between those two sides.
Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
When you've done a show that's as successful as 'Lovejoy' was, it hangs around for a few years, and people know you from it. I escaped the shadow when I stopped 'Lovejoy' by not doing any television for four years.
Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people - do you think it would be successful? Would people watch it? But no one questions the fact that everyone's white. That's what we have to change.
My interest in astronomy grew from the play 'Space' that I did, where I had to learn where my character was from. I had to study the stars and figure where everything was and how I got here and all of those things.
I personally don't believe in aliens. But, I do believe that there is something out there that is accountable for all these mysterious things that are going on: I think it is a spiritual thing not a material thing.
When I'm reading material, if I'm a little bit afraid of a part and I'm willing to admit that to myself, then I'll do it, definitely. If I'm worried about being able to do it, to get it - I absolutely just love it.
Many actors will try something different once, but if it isn't a box office success they'll never do it again. In my opinion, there's no point in going on with this job if you do the same thing over and over again.
The news business is simple but it's not easy to do well. You know the story, you have to cover it, you need pictures, you need good writers, you have to get it to the screen but it's obviously not easy to do well.
I kind of missed out on those years when a lot of my friends did big backpacking trips around Europe and that sort of thing. So to be able to travel and see parts of the world on the job is kind of a double whammy.
As an actor in the classroom, you're revealing so much, and teachers are, you know, they're just critiquing like a painting or a piece of work; it's like, it's you, and it's your emotions that they're working with.
There's something about Michael J. Fox that I loved when he did all the '80s stuff. His way of performing all the physicality, which is why it's so tragic now, but the way he used his body so much as well, I loved.
It frustrates me that Britain can't make something like 'CSI' or 'The Sopranos'. Instead, British TV puts soap in primetime while every other civilized nation leaves it in daytime. Viewers should be more demanding.
The Danes don't take themselves seriously at all and look for the joke in everything. Us Scots are on the same line of latitude and have the same amount of light, which may be why we have a similar sense of humour.
One memory I have is there were a lot of dogs at this one place and my brother got in a horrific fight with a dog and the dog bit his toe off. They became fast friends after that. He lost a toe and gained a friend.
It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.
'Spinal Tap' is interesting because it created a genre of film and ended it - all in one motion. If you do a mockumentary, you are always going to be compared with that film, and you are never going to be as funny.
I think, in a film that's supposed to last an hour and a half, I think you have to really pay attention to what kind of movie you're making, what is the audience experiencing, and does this joke fit with this joke?
A lot of people come from small towns, and they come here wondering 'Can I really make it in Hollywood?' When I went to L.A., I knew I was going to make it. There's no doubt about it. Why? Because I'm from Chicago!
I read the script first to get the perspective on the whole story, the writing, and how the character I'm auditioning for is talked about by other people or relates to other people; from there, I go into the sides.
What matters to me is my own estimation, and Im very tough on myself. I need to be proud of what Ive done and I work hard for it. I had a very Christian upbringing... lots of guilt. A good thing, It keeps you sane.
Normally, after a movie, you know, you don't want to get up and do another one right away. That kind of pretend muscle or whatever you use making movies is kind of, you know, spent. And you have other things to do.
I'm in New Mexico making a movie called "Granite Mountain." I'm playing the head of the organization called Statesman, which is the United States version of Kingsman. I'm like how Michael Caine was in the original.
My son tried to work in films and he ultimately gave it up, he finally couldn't make a living, he couldn't support himself. He worked all the time and he didn't make enough money to have a house, have an apartment.
I remember I was standing next to Timothy Dalton in Brenda Starr, and he turned to me and said,"Oh, I think I've just been tagged to play James Bond." I'll never forget that. I went, "Oh! Okay. Well, good for you."
You keep your head down and you work and work, and all of a sudden you pick your head up and people are receiving it the same way we're sending it. They're thinking the same things that I'm thinking about the show.
There are times between five and seven when this house is like a bowling alley, but it's reinspired me. My acting has gotten better because of these kids. I feel the same spirit I did when I was doing Off-Broadway.
What's interesting about playing Maura is that I get to use more of Jeffrey that I've ever used in any role, and I think that's the remarkable part about it and truly the most surprising part about doing this role.
An acting assistant stage manager in a theater in Canterbury, a rep theater. A small wage but just enough to get by on, and I made props, and I walked on, and I changed scenery, and I realized that I just loved it.
If you dissect my career as an actor, and you can pull out more than enough of those type of movies, from The Hurt Locker and The Town and so on and so forth, and that's kind of where our wheelhouse is. We love it.
Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you're in an isolated place. Even if you're working with a lot of other people, you're kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.
My spiritual journey has been a good kind of thing I've been on. I guess some people would say I'm obsessed with it, but in a really good way. It's just enjoyable. I don't really have crazy obsessions about things.
I will say you could always look at 'Looney Tunes' and learn about writing. I think you can learn a lot about the beats of comedy. I think you can find out about awkward pauses, because I think they did those well.
I had opportunities to stay on shows for long periods of time, and maybe financially that would have been good, but I feel good about trying to keep doing things that are a little bit different than what I've done.
Honestly, to tell you the truth, being trapped in any video game sounds like a living nightmare to me. In most video games, the point is it's a fight for survival, so I think it would be a terrifying place to live.
Obviously, when you get into larger budgets, you have less of that freedom, and I just - I'm not a person that tends to make stories for those larger budgets. To me, it's not much fun to have that kind of pressure.
British press think entirely in clichés, and when they do come across creative work, they think that it must be based on something, because they don't realize that you can create things that aren't based on things.
Now that people know who I am, I get offered plays here and there. It was so much easier to do it when nobody knew who I was. I can't even imagine that somebody would come and pay money just to come and see me now.
I've always believed that you often need less. You don't need to hear why people are friends, you don't need to hear why people are roommates, you don't need to hear why someone would help a friend to do something.
As a kid growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, all I wanted to do was be on Broadway in a musical. 'Spring Awakening' kind of answered all of my questions and fulfilled all of my dreams - beyond my wildest dreams.
Once everyone else around you starts to become incredibly comfortable - if anything, quite happy with what you are doing - then I start to settling in and trusting all those choices that I've made up to that point.
I started doing my own animated movies when I was in ninth grade; that's when I got the filmmaking bug. When I was about 16, I started writing jokes for doing stand up, and then I was 19 and started doing stand up.
I don't seem to have ever had a plan, but I have always been quite good at walking through doors when they are opened. I am never any good at anticipating what will happen next, but I always go for it when it does.
The great houses of Britain have, for centuries, been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of the local area, of all of us.
I had a date with a girl I called 'the parrot.' All she did was repeat everything I said. She never had an original thought of her own. Everything I liked, she liked. Everything I hated, she hated. It was annoying!
One of the things I wanted to do was direct. There've been a couple of times that a director will walk up and say something to me, and all it does is make me mad. Inside I'll go, 'Well, that wasn't helpful at all.'
After my parents got divorced, I had to go right into public school in the fourth grade. The Steiner school had never really taught me how to read, so it was a rude awakening. I was playing catch-up the whole time.
Great art is not instant. It comes from experience, it comes from a place within. If you're trying to generate material, then you're going to generate stuff. It's not going to be great, it's just going to be stuff.
Mel [Gibson] could stage physical comedy and put the camera in such a way... I mean, we did some really funny stuff, and he had some great ideas about how to do it. It was a delight to work with him in that regard.