Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I grew up in the South Bronx, raised by my grandmother, who scrapped and scraped to make sure I had a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I was painfully aware of what it was like to live with limited resources and a certain level of uncertainty.
Light and funny has a more compelling quality when you're younger. But I haven't abandoned the genre: I love falling down; I love Lucille Ball. It's just that a lot of those stories revolve around problems that I can't convincingly portray at this age.
I'm picky about skin care because I hate perfumes or anything that says 'It will take away all the lines on your face.' I don't want to do that. But I do use Kiehl's and this skin cream called Restorsea because it makes my skin look nice and feel soft.
I was always drawn toward the Actor's Studio. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute when I first came to New York. One of my favorite teachers was one of Al [Pachino]'s teachers, a guy named Charlie Laughton, who was just a wonderful, wonderful man.
I was very serene, and I still am, until I start talking in another voice, then suddenly I have a lot of volume and I'm frantic. But I didn't want to be one of those people who's always talking in accents in real life, so I started doing sketch comedy.
I'm not the kind of person who's going to look at the top of a mountain and go, 'Oh, look at that! That's lovely. That's lovely, that top of that mountain.' I'm the kind of person who's going to go, 'Oh, my God! That's so lovely! Let's go climb up it!'
You know, I never felt like I was young at the time and obviosly having Mia was absolutely planned. It's only know when I meet people who are my age and single, [with] no kids, that I reflect and say, 'Bloody hell? I really have leaved at a fast pace.'
My job as the actress playing Hanna Schmitz, as the actress playing any part, is to understand the character, and to ultimately love the character. And I did love Hanna, absolutely, because I understood her as profoundly as I did at the end of the day.
'Somnia' is a story about loss and, I guess, what you're willing to do to have closure and try and feel whole again. It's a story of redemption in a sense. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a heartbreaking story that's incredibly terrifying.
I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.
I have friends that I have made through Twitter or things like that, but they're all verified as real people - I've either seen them perform, or we're mutual fans of each other, something like that. I don't have any authentic, 'Catfish'-worthy stories.
Things can change on a daily basis in television. You can be introduced to aspects of your character that you had no idea existed because they didn't exist a week before. The next week it might be taken away from you in some way that you can't control.
I did two commercials, one for Porsche, but I was definitely not the type of child one would cast in a commercial or any TV that you'd typically go out for as a young kid. I wasn't the type of kid who would be in stuff that kids watch. I wasn't cutesy.
I learn a lot with actors that I don't think are good. Every experience shapes you. I've had experiences with actresses - and I say actresses because there's just a woman thing - that have achieved what she's achieved, by means that I can't understand.
I was shooting Beyond Redemption, I started shooting American Horror Story, so I was going back and forth between Northern California and LA. That was not bad at all - that flight is like getting on the subway, it's nothing. And then during rehearsals.
I think it's really important for celebrities to use their power of money and fame to get their voices out there. It's funny to me that we're expected to keep quiet just because of who we are. Why do I lose my right to speak my mind because I'm famous?
I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I always remember this energy force, this woman flying around the room and singing these harmonies so everyone went, 'Wow!' So I thought, 'That's what I want to do.'
Nobody cares about that. I do have guys every now and then who say - it's always guys by the way, it's never women - who say, "You were my childhood crush, can we date?" And I'm like, "There's something kind of creepy about that. Do you hear yourself?"
I always want to abandon myself to my characters, and I never knew if I was actually abandoning myself to Lady Macbeth. I was scared to enter the darkness. Almost every day, I would go back home and be like, 'Oh my God, what am I doing?' I had no idea.
When I was a kid, my dream was to be an actress and to be able to jump from one world to another, to disappear into roles, that people wouldn't recognize me from one movie to another. So I feel very lucky that I have the opportunity to live that dream.
You know how you wake up in the morning and sometimes you look gorgeous and other times you look like you got hit by a mack truck? I realized that my mack truck is food. If I have no sugar, yeast or wine, I have no undereye bags and my skin is perfect.
Every year, my family and I would go visit my moms family in Texas. We would drive from Chicago to Texas, and once we started to get towards San Antonio, everyone looked like me! It was such a great feeling. Everyone had the same brown skin that I did.
There are all kinds of letters and protests that come from, not surprisingly, Japanese fishermen, the fishermen's wives; there are student groups, all different types of people; the protest against the Americans' use of the Pacific for nuclear testing.
Life is a journey one that much better traveled with a companion by our side. Sometimes, we lose our companions along the way and then the journey becomes unbearable. You see, human beings are designed for many things, but loneliness isn't one of them.
I think there's a backlash against minorities in this country and that part of what caused that was the fact that a black man became president. And a certain portion of the privileged population think their privilege is at stake, and they want it back.
There are people who are suffering beyond description. They are innocent people, they didn't bring this upon themselves. They are the victims of the sins of other people. And while it's hard to see, it's important to understand that these people exist.
There's a whole language to movement and how you embody someone, and how you can use different techniques for different characters. I guess just posture, and the way you walk, and the way you physically are. All of that says a lot about who someone is.
I feel that in order to truly be an actor, you have to differentiate yourself and your roles, and you have to constantly challenge yourself. I'm not interested in just doing glitzy movie after glitzy movie and being on the cover of Us Weekly every day.
The fact that there is no right or wrong is what I think is maddening. I can think you're a phenomenal actor, but the guy next door can think you're a horrible actor, and neither of us is wrong and neither of us is right. It's just a matter of opinion.
I want it to feel very satisfying, the ending, so you've felt like you were going on a journey and we were trying to lead you somewhere. So going into that, it's made it extremely funny but also a very emotional last season of the 'The Mindy Project' .
As a kid, I always loved serialized books. It’s the reason why people love Harry Potter. Serialization is amazing. It works in television. It works in film and it works in books. Especially when you’re a young kid, you get attached to these characters.
More is spent in a single month [in the U.S.] fighting the war on drugs than all monies ever expended domestically or internationally fighting slavery from its inception. Per month, we spend more on the drug war than we ever have trying to free slaves.
Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.
Small loans can transform lives, especially the lives of women and children. The poor can become empowered instead of disenfranchised. Homes can be built, jobs can be created, businesses can be launched, and individuals can feel a sense of worth again.
I enjoy being healthy and I enjoy feeling healthy, and I know the difference when I don't take of myself. It's not like I am aiming for any particular goal or anything. It's more like it's a result of having balanced, healthy meals and just exercising.
I'm also working on another independent film called Roxanne, Roxanne, about Roxanne Shante, who was one of the first African American battle rappers from Brooklyn. It is produced by Forest Whitaker and Pharrell [williams], so I'm really in great hands.
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.
The reality is that there are so few roles out there for women and for women of color, and I'm a character actor, this I know. And I'm getting to see more of the roles that are out there, but there aren't many. And zilch have been studio movies. Zilch.
I hate remakes of TV shows - I didn't like the new Charlie's Angels at all - and I just don't see the point of going back and doing the same thing over again. Baywatch was fun and successful, probably because we didn't know what the heck we were doing.
Everything you do, every thought you have, every word you say creates a memory that you will hold in your body. It's imprinted on you and affects you in subtle ways - ways you are not always aware of. With that in mind, be very conscious and selective.
I wanted to go to New York and be a stage actress, doing things like Chekhov. None of that happened, and then I went to L.A. and an agent said, 'I think you belong in commercials and TV.' So I did that and got some opportunities that I absolutely love.
I had a small-town life - I worked at the local McDonald's for three years. I'm not sure why they kept me: I am something of a daydreamer and a dawdler, so they would only let me be the 'friendly voice' that greeted you when you entered the restaurant.
Are you kidding? I'm a terrible cook, but John is a really great one. Literally, I never cook. The whole time we were dating, I prepared two officially romantic meals. Both of them were such disasters that he begs me never to go into the kitchen again.
I understand that there's a certain energy in youth, no question, in terms of pursuing jobs. But there is wisdom in age. It's too bad that the two can't come together because I do think that people are dropped from what they're really good at too soon.
I have had the most wonderful childhood, and I was raised in a very loving family. And it was nothing short of an amazing privilege because I was incredibly lucky to be able to play up in trees and make it like silly dens in a bush and stuff like that.
It's really scary, when you're on the verge of becoming a teenager, and you don't know if people like you for you or if they like you for the show you're on. So I started finding friends who were not that way, who are accepting and see you who you are.
You never have a consistent job as an actor, so you're always looking for the next thing. It's defined by the opportunities that come across your doorstep at the time. A career is totally in the hands of fate, in terms of how those opportunities arise.
I never thought I'd spend all my life with Gary. I suppose I was quite cynical about marriage. But with Jude, I knew right from the beginning: there was an electricity I'd never felt before. It was so easy, we talked for hours. It was a relief, really.
I certainly don't feel like I am desperate to run away from a film set. I love the hustle and bustle. Everything is sort of mad right before a take, and then it just settles, and you've got these two minutes of a bit of magic. I just love that in film.
I've struggled a lot in my life with feeling like a failure. I lived in a 'prison of perfectionism,' holding myself to a standard I couldn't possibly live up to. Then I became a mom, and all of a sudden, there arose even more opportunities for failure.