Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
People are going to always have their opinions whether you date a black man or not. I've had girlfriends, family members comment on black men that I've dated as well as white people. People want to see what they want to see. And if anybody doesn't fit that picture they're going to be like, 'Yeah, I didn't see you with him.'
When I saw 'Legally Blonde' on Broadway, I rang my agent and said 'I want to be seen for this,' but the rest weren't big choices, really. 'Hedda Gabler' was a phone call offering it to me, and as I've said before quite embarrassingly, I didn't know the play, so I didn't sit there thinking 'I would now like to tackle Ibsen.'
Acting is one of the professions I most respect because if you tried something and you can't do it and you thought at one time in your life - and of course, I did at one time of my life want it - and you realize that you can't do it that you can't just switch your personality that way, then you are in awe of people who can.
I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and... actually, it is fine.'
Yoga stretches out your body and releases lactic acid. I do it four times a week, and my skin feels fantastic afterwards. When I'm doing a film, I do it every day - I keep a yoga mat in my trailer. Sometimes I do it in front of the TV. The stretching makes me feel so good. It gets my heart going and helps me breathe deeply.
We each have a self, but I don't think that we're born with one. You know how newborn babies believe they're part of everything; they're not separate? Well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly. It's like that initial stage is over - oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive. It's no longer valid or real.
I'm a Marvel fan, and I think this particular world that 'Doctor Strange' goes into is really, really, really exciting. I'm really interested as both an actor and a fan to see what's done in this particular world. It's all about creativity. It's not about everything exploding at the end. It's about something very different.
I have no affinity for animals. I don’t hate animals and I would never hurt an animal; I just don’t actively care about them. When a coworker shows me cute pictures of her dog, I struggle to respond correctly, like an autistic person who has been taught to recognize human emotions from flash cards. In short, I am the worst.
I wanted Bow's hair and makeup and clothing to look like a woman who has four children, a career, and a full life. For example, she won't wear eyeshadow unless she's going out. Because it takes a lot of time to put eyeshadow on. She's a woman who has style, but it's all about functionality - she grabs stuff from her closet.
There was this wonderful trick of going to the theater with my parents and sitting in the audience under the watchful eye of an usher, and then these other people would come on the stage: They spoke differently and had different clothes and hair. Afterward, they would come back, and they were my parents again. It was magic.
Latino actors and actresses have had to struggle for decades, but when I came around with Real Women Have Curves, attitudes were starting to change. We screened the film all over the world - in Jewish communities, black communities, Greek communities, German communities - and people across the board said, "That's my family."
I'm constantly playing this game in my head where I'm thinking, 'Can this quote be pared down and misinterpreted?' It doesn't matter what outlet I'm talking to and how comprehensive the interview is, because I have to think in terms of, 'Right, but 'People' magazine could just take this one quote and take it out of context.'
I was desperately shy when I was wee. Totally lacked confidence socially. When I look back at school photographs, I'm always the one shrinking in the back. What I really wanted to do was become a writer, and I don't think the residue of that has ever gone away. I still feel the ultimate achievement would be to write a novel.
When I was in college at UCLA, I took a playwriting course. I was all set to be a writer. But I had to take this acting class as a theater arts major. I had to do this scene in a one-act comedy. I just said this line, and then... this laugh happened. I thought, 'Whoa. This is a really good feeling. What have I been missing?'
I'm the wife Spike Lee deserves. A white woman, which he says he would never be with, so let's get someone really white. I am Spike Lee's wife from Hell. I'm white and weird and I won't pay enough attention to him. If he does any more of those angry interviews, I'm going to write him and see if he wants the wife he deserves.
I think you have to take each movie for its own value. There will be those you'll roll your eyes over and others you can't wait to see. It all has to do with the intention. If someone's intention is just to make money and exploit something for profit, then it's not good. If it's thoughtfully done, the proof's in the pudding.
The weekend after 'Kimmy' started streaming on Netflix, I did notice a definite difference in people on the street recognizing you. I think that's such a strange thing to happen. It's like, you asked for it, you went and put yourself in the public eye, so don't be surprised people recognize you, but that part can be strange.
What I love about what I get to do is that I'm allowed to create the stories that I want to tell with minimal interference by some very big corporations like Microsoft and Sprint and EA and BioWare. The advantage that these tech companies have is that they understand the space organically, versus traditional media companies.
"The Theory of Everything" is an extraordinary story because [Jane Hawing] was incredibly religious and [Stephen Hawking] was an atheist, so you have this conflict both on a domestic level between a couple in a difficult situation but also this bigger conflict of science versus religion, so it's a really fascinating project.
I just think that there's so much judgment in the world, whether it's coming from women in general or from men onto women - it's a lot. And when it comes to being a mom, I wish everyone could band together and realize that everyone has different beliefs, different styles, and different things that work them and their family.
I auditioned for a one-act version of 'The Princess and the Pea' called 'The Ugly Duckling,' and I was cast as the King, starting a pattern of being cast in roles originally intended for men. I went to the first rehearsal, and I didn't get any laughs, and I choked and I quit. I walked away from it and joined the tennis team.
I always say I'm not going to care this time, but I always do. Like, I did one this season called Tax Man with Martin Short, which was like, "Are you kidding me? Doing a pilot with Martin Short? Like, career high." And I just assumed, because it's Martin Short, like, "How are they not going to pick that up?" But they didn't.
Actors can write and produce too. Then when I was working on Jason Bourne - having had that experience - instead of going back to my trailer and being separate from everyone else, I would sit behind the monitor and watch Paul Greengrass work and be much more included in the process. That was new for me and really enriching.
Some people have bigger egos than others. You have to take a lot of abuse, and take it in and not respond, because you don't want conflicts on the movie, you don't want to start screaming at people even when they treat you - even when they're not behaving properly, because you want them to do their job, and keep on doing it.
In the theater, actors are the essential element of the work. In a film, it's a real collaboration - not that theater isn't, because it is - but it's a collaboration to such an extent that you can give a performance in film that sometimes you look at and you go, "Well, that's not the performance I was trying to give at all."
My brother and I did theater in high school, and were both in Pennsylvania Youth Theatre. It was awesome. When you go to Los Angeles, it's a rough city, and it's hard. You drive around in your car in your own little bubble, and there's tons of rejection. Being from the Lehigh Valley helped because it was something so stable.
Simon McBurney on "All My Sons" on Broadway - we had an eight-week rehearsal period and I really enjoyed the way that he prepared us to go onstage. It was different than anything I've done and it was a different way of being directed, so I tried to take my different experiences of these directors and give those to my actors.
I had to act in a school play when I was about ten years old. I really didn't want to do it. But everyone had to do it so I didn't have a choice. A talent agent came and watched it and later gave me some work. It's funny because I'd always known that I wanted a movie career. I just didn't think that I would be in the movies.
When forced to survive in an apocalyptic world, there are some characters that embrace their higher selves with some emerging as natural born leaders, and others succumb to their more base and primal selves and basically transform into savages. It's really a fascinating character study in the exploration of the human psyche.
I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president's birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing 'Happy Birthday,' like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!'
I haven't read the comic book. I didn't even know there was one until about halfway though. Helen Mirren and I were talking about that actually, who also felt kind of silly. When we had to run she was like, 'Oh God, we're both going to get fired.' The running sequences, it's a particular kind of humiliation because it's fun.
It doesn't matter what kind of music you like or what kind of person you are or what you're used to listening to, or whether you know me or not. It doesn't matter, either way you can be inspired by it [my songs]. Each way I want to make it relatable to that group, but most of all keep the inspirational part of it, for sure."
Marriage is not a priority for me. I'm not saying I'll never do it. It's just not where we are as a family . . . I'll be at home with my man, having a perfectly loving time, and I'll see all these comments on some site about how wrong I am for not being married. I don't feel less loved or less loving because I'm not married.
September 11 either made me love this country or it made me realize how much I already did. I think it's the latter. Seeing "Fahrenheit 9/11" made me think deeply about love of country - how it molds us, drives and emboldens us and how it can sometimes make us so angry, we want to shout out to the world: 'No, this is wrong.'
My mother was very passionate about life and she would do anything for us. And she had to fight alone to raise us. We never had a lot of money for extras or anything. She had to work six days a week, and then she would do breakfast, lunch and dinner. She was a super-woman! For me, I don't know how she did it with three kids.
After the play of 'Fleabag,' we had conversations with different channels and with film companies about whether 'Fleabag' should be a half-hour sitcom, an hourlong, serialized drama, or a film. And I knew that it couldn't be a drama because I wanted to hide the drama - that had to be the surprise. I knew it had to be comedy.
There are definitely things about acting that have helped me growing up and finding myself, but there are also things that make it a bit more difficult. I guess I do allow myself to explore more when I know that, at the end of the day, if I really wanted to, I could just play a different person all day and be fine with that.
As an actor, you don't want to ever get too comfortable where you're like, "I know this character," and you don't do the work anymore. Then, there's something that you're going to miss. If you always stay hungry to learn more about your character, that's a healthy thing, while having a great sense of who she is, at the core.
It's very hard to find a good comedy. I prefer doing comedy far over anything else because I think they're actually more profound. But finding a good one and a great ensemble is very difficult to do and I'm delighted that in these particular times there is so much interest in comedy and that comedy is having so much success.
A long time ago, when I was married, in the beginning it was bliss. I eloped after one month, and I married for security. I thought, 'I finally met a man who loves God and comes from a great family. I'm working, I love God, and I'm out here in California by myself, and I've met this great man.' So, I said yes. And we eloped.
Every morning, when Alaskans wake up, one of the first things they do, is look outside to see if there are any Russians hanging around. And if there are, you gotta go up to them and ask, 'What are you doing here?' and if they can't give you a good reason, it's our responsibility to say, you know, 'Shoo! Get back over there!'
I want my mom to be able to wear my clothes, I want my older sister to be able to wear my clothes, and the people in my life aren't necessarily built like I am, you know? They're built in a million different beautiful bodies, shapes, and sizes, and so why would I exclude anybody from being able to have it? This is the point.
My nursery school did a production of 'The Three Little Pigs.' I played the third pig. When the wolf knocked on my door, I refused to get up and answer it because, to me, he was knocking the wrong way. I just lay there, snoring away on stage, fully immersed in my character. My dad turned to my mom and said: 'Dustin Hoffman.'
I love to be busy and be challenged. I'm my happiest when I'm under pressure and almost overwhelmed by how much I have to get done. I wish I could say I'm an architect and planned it this way, foresaw doing all these things, but honestly, I've been lucky that things have come across my path and they've worked out well for me.
I've made movies that were adaptations and I've been kind of frustrated by the process because, you know that old axiom, 'It's never as good as the book'? It's often true because nothing competes with your own imagination. When you're reading a book and you imagine something in your head, nothing's going to compete with that.
Because I am a bad girl, people always automatically think that I am a bad girl. Or that I carry a dark secret with me or that I'm obsessed with death. The truth is that I am probably the least morbid person one can meet. If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.
When you're in your twenties, you're made of expectations, and when they're shattered, you don't know how to behave. The fact is if you react really outraged, you fear that you'll get dropped and feel even more terrible. But there's only a certain amount you can put up with before you become obnoxious in your own eyes, right?
I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman, you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that, write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
I disagree with a couple of the stances of the Catholic Church. My older brother is gay, and it's important for me to be able to love him completely and freely, and it's important for me to spread beliefs in the world that are not going to limit people in their love. I can't support a religion that doesn't support my brother.
Mental illness doesn't need to be hidden or glorified. It should be normalized to where people feel comfortable sharing with their families and friends and know they're not alone. By opening up about my struggle, I'm hoping I can help someone who feels like they don't know what to do or when they can't accept their situation.