Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Shows like 'Sex and the City' got women involved again in a political way. They were drawn into the personal stories of the four women who together make up one complete cosmopolitan woman. We want to have community, and the show filled that void in our lives: friendship between women.
'Facts of Life' was and continues to be a milestone on my journey. But when people act like the journey ended when 'Facts of Life' ended, that's annoying. I could never and would never want to divorce myself from it because it was such a great experience from so many different facets.
I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.
It was just a little weird coming into the seventh season (of 'Gilmore Girls'), where everyone is already set in their ways and their dynamics, and you sort of feel like you're coming into a party late. So I was just, like, 'Ugh! How do I make friends?' It's like high school dynamics!
As actresses, our schedules are really wonky and we work weird hours. For me, personally, I watch pretty much everything on Netflix, and I watch all the episodes in a row, when I can. I don't really watch much of any live TV anymore, and I feel like a lot of people are doing that now.
I talked my parents into sending me to Roedean at 16. I had this idea that if I could get into Cambridge, then I could join Footlights. My problem was that I went to a comprehensive in Brighton. I thought I'd have to start from a good school, and the best I could think of was Roedean.
I don't have a favorite process. My favorite process is the right process for the person I am working with. I can fit in any process as long as the director respects who I am and doesn't try to put me in a situation to get something out of me - if I can give it without that situation.
Everyone in the world needs someone they can depend on. Be their faithful friends, determined advocates, or a loving family. But occasionally in life, the people we thought would always be there for us…leave. And if that happens, it’s amazing the lengths we’ll go to, to get them back.
'24' is a pretty serious show - there isn't a lot of improv that is happening. Having said that, I do play around with the delivery. A lot of the humor comes from playing a character who is very furious and really up in her own brain and in a serious situation. That is humorous to me.
I basically look like a lot of modern Orthodox people you know, but I work on a TV show where I sometimes have to kiss Jim Parsons. That's why I don't take on the title of modern Orthodox, but in terms of ideology and theology I pretty much sound like a liberal modern Orthodox person.
My strength has always been my family and my friends who are like family. The business can chew you up and spit you out and if you don't have some calm in the storm, it's a very lonely journey. My family and friends love me whether I'm working or not and that makes all the difference.
There's so much negativity in the world and what you only need to hear is all the love. People try to say to me, 'I just heard someone say this or that about you,' and I just ignore it because it's irrelevant. Love is what makes the world go around, and that's all we need to focus on.
I'm the kind of person who would rather get my hopes up really high and watch them get dashed to pieces than wisely keep my expectations at bay and hope they are exceeded. This quality has made me a needy and theatrical friend, but has given me a spectacularly dramatic emotional life.
It's really sweet when people tweet at me and say I'm their spirit animal or 'I wish she was my best friend,' which is the nicest compliment. For me, it's like, doing television is so personal because you're in people's homes, so the fact that people feel that way means so much to me.
A celebrated and hugely popular actress in her native Iran, Ahangarani first landed on the radar of the Iranian authorities for her open support of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi, which led to her arrest in July 2009 in the aftermath of a disputed presidential election in Iran.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.
There's so much with my character in Dredd that I identify with. She's my favorite character I think I've ever played. She's the most dynamic and fascinating woman that I could even imagine playing, so I love her. What I love about her is that her sensitivity is her greatest strength.
I was never the girl in high school who had a boyfriend for years. My longest relationship has been 18 months. I've thought maybe I'm really superficial and unable to have a relationship. What I've found is that people are attracted by my independence, and then they try to squelch it.
Let's start working towards wellness, a healing in our community, a healing in relationships, so male and female can finally sit down and understand that that young boy or young girl saw behavior exhibited by their parents that was negative and abusive and they're going to pass it on.
I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.
I don't consider myself a feminist, but I feel very empowered as a woman, and I've used all my resources widely. I believe in equality, but that's just naturally happening. I still want a door opened for me, to be treated like a lady, but I also want equal rights for women, of course.
I hate it [driving] more than anything in the whole world. I'm just an awful, awful driver. I get lost, I hit things (parked cars, one moving car, a pole in my parking garage). Just when I think I got everything under control, I'll miss seeing something out of the corner of my mirror.
I definitely believe that you are drawn to certain things for inexplicable reasons, but in a very powerful way. I don't know what it is exactly, but I know that things happen kind of miraculously sometimes, and so I'm willing to believe that there's something pretty magical out there.
If Occupy Wall Street was actually a march, and people from all around the country could collect and march toward Washington, D.C., as part of this massive movement of people . . . I think that kind of pressure is much more powerful than a sit-in that seems to be a little unorganized.
I really fell in love with the art of making clothes when I was dancing on tour. Creating my stage image through clothes was a blast. I discovered a total sense for what cool chicks and rockin' dudes like to wear. Total Skull is for those people. People that like to rock - total rock.
I always think that the difference between film and theater is like the difference between masturbation and making love. Because, in film, you just have to get one moment right; you're practically by yourself. And in theater, you actually have to have a relationship with the audience.
I was a professional gambler. When I lived in London, there were a couple of years when I didn't really earn money doing anything else. I mean, I did other things: like, I made work, and I was working with Derek Jarman at the time, but the way I made money was putting money on horses.
I had to face the fact that I had been using my gay friends as props. They were always supposed to be funny and entertain me and praise me and listen to my problems, and their life was supposed to be a secret that no one wanted to hear about. I wanted them to stay in the “half closet.
The ideal situation for a parent is one that no one has - having a fulfilling job that requires you to work three days a week. It's better for the parents, because they get to spend time with the children and also have a source of pride and achievement - and income - outside the home.
I thought my story, my experiences as a 2-year-old 'evacuee' from London at the outset of the war, could be important. What happened to me as a child was very light compared to what happened to many children, but... in Britain, there are so many people who just don't know our history.
I think that as actresses - and I've definitely gone through this in a really bizarre way, because I worked so much and was really lucky with the roles that I got when I was younger - I remember hearing the older actors saying, "It gets tough," and thinking, "Really? I can't imagine."
One thing that used to worry me is the fact that it seemed like Harvard was this big scary thing where I would have to spend all my time studying just to get in. But getting to go to both campuses of Harvard and Oxford and getting to meet some of the professors was absolutely amazing.
I think a lot of women can see themselves in me and a lot of people in general are empowered by seeing someone wear what they want, do what they want, maybe get criticism or get praise, whatever, but still continue to wear and do what they want. I think that a lot of people need that.
If you're a game company, you want to create a singular gaming experience, and part of that is doing stuff that nobody else is doing. If you're trying to create a game that feels different, you're going to create a lead that feels different. It's not going to be just another white guy.
I don't think of myself as a role model, but I do feel like, for women out there who are trying to figure out who they are, the most important choice to make is to live a life that's true to who you are inside. And let your ideas and your heart and your mind drive your fashion choices.
When I saw contestants fighting for their lives on 'The Biggest Loser,' I realized I just wanted to be healthy - to have fun playing soccer with my son or teaching my daughter to shoot hoops. Then it was so much easier to say no to carbs, soda, or dessert, and the weight just came off.
I deal in a very artistic way of what interests me and marks my passion, and I try to - whether its good or not - am in love with acting and the stage and characters and the ability to reach and to touch people, so that's where, I guess, that's where my heart will reside, by and large.
A lot of people have told me, 'You're not this and so can't play that,' and I can't tell you the amount of times I've been told I'm not sexy. I don't wear my sexiness overtly doesn't mean that I can't become that girl for a role. That's what I do; I become things. Use your imagination.
There's no question that you can explore aspects of yourself through roles that you play, and you get a chance to investigate yourself; that's healthy, and it's therapeutic in a way. But if you're indulging yourself, exploration at the cost of the story or the project, that's not good.
I always wonder about people's history and their lives, especially people that are a little bit more distant, who obviously have had some kind of a thing, and you know there's some reason why they're not able to connect. It's not because they don't want to. They don't have the ability.
Doing voiceovers is so great because even though many people would think it's just your voice, you really do use all your physicality. I've done everything from playing a butterfly to Alice in Wonderland when she's 10 feet tall, so it allows you to be an actor and build new characters.
I love driving, but sometimes, I'm not too good at it because I spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror if I know I'm being followed. You don't respond like, 'Oh, there's paparazzi.' It's more like, 'There's a man, and he's going to attack me.' That's how your body responds.
For women and men, but especially women, with on camera acting you have to look a certain way. You have to present yourself as the most attractive version of yourself that you can be, and then you're judged based on how attractive you are or if you are the right look for the character.
Sarcasm is weird. Even not in acting, in life I feel like 'sarcastic' is a word that people use to describe me sometimes so when I meet someone, it's almost like they feel like they have to also be sarcastic, but it can sometimes just come off as mean if it's not used in the right way.
Everybody - even huge movie stars - have downs. That's just how it is. The work ebbs and flows. My manager and I were saying, 'Let's remember that in 2013 we were soooo busy.' So whenever it is that we're not, maybe it'll come back again. Maybe it won't. But you've gotta love the ride.
The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say sophisticated.
I had really specific ideas of what kind of mom I was going to be and what kind of things I was going to provide for my child - even down to the organic, wooden toys Birdie was going to be allowed to chew on. Then cut to my daughter being obsessed with every plastic, 99-cent store toy.
The interesting thing with acting, actually, is that you get to be so many different people that you get to do so much research on so many different things that I've learned so much about brain surgery and about astrophysicist-type of things and traveling to amazing parts of the world.
People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women have this sense of their use-by date.
You bring your children onto this earth thinking, 'Okay, I want to make sure that by that time, I'm gonna be good and that they'll be okay.' But it's like, every day we're worried, 'Are we gonna be good?' Things change constantly, so you just gotta push, and you gotta work to the core.