Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What Hollywood truly wants is for people to be themselves. I think what it's designed for is to kind of turn people into something and just make them saleable. But what it really stands for, what it really loves, are people who are unafraid to be themselves, and as you can see, these are people who are excelling in their careers.
For some strange reason, we believe that anyone who lived before we were born was in some peculiar way a different kind of human being from any we have come in contact with in our own lifetime. This concept must be changed; we must realize in our bones that almost everything in time and history has changed except the human being.
When somebody can't reveal what they're after - whether by word or by how the camera is set up, lighting, etcetera - it's like an electronic beep beep; it interferes very much with what we actors can do. And, after all, the director wants the actors to be bringing forth the best that they can, according to whatever vision he has.
A radio play actually ended up being the first acting job I ever had. A lot of times when I'm on camera, I'm playing characters that are more like myself, and I don't get to do a lot of real character work. But when you're doing animation, you are the very epitome of colorful characters. I think I'm just really into make believe.
In a serious relationship, I will definitely write music about a guy. I'm totally into mix tapes and I'm all about small little things. I'll drop by their door and just leave a gift or come over if they're sick and make them chicken noodle soup and rent a DVD and play board games. I think those little things mean a lot to someone.
I love Dexter. I love Top Chef. I can't wait for it to come back. I love Friday Night Lights. I think TV is in a great place right now. It's definitely getting better and better. I think there is some of the most complete writing for women and female characters, they're done in television production and not really film production.
I've failed a million times on stage. I've listened to notes that I knew weren't right. I've pitched ideas and let other people change them, knowing that it was the wrong choice. The question you have to ask yourself is: How do you want to fail? Do you want to fail in a way that feels like it respects your tastes and value system?
Because the world of this film begins and ends in the imagination of Tim Burton, you're not seeing a movie that's been shot on locations that you've seen a million times. Because this world has no rules, you're seeing so many different and separate brushstrokes and colors and characterizations somehow getting combined through Tim.
In stand up every joke is thought about so meticulously, and one word can completely change how the audience responds. You're up there with no safety net; you can't shirk responsibility. It's your thoughts; it's your voice. You can't blame it on the writing, you can't blame it on the editor. You are just up there completely naked.
Hollywood is so small that everyone has either worked with someone or knows someone who knows someone and so it was kind of easy and fun. And I think there's something exciting about being, like, "Hey! Welcome to the set!" and making everyone feel welcome, and making it fun, 'cause everybody knows what it's like to be the new kid.
I have a way of dealing with situations where I come off awkward, or people think I’m purposely trying to make things uncomfortable. But normally I’m talking really slowly or there’s a lot of silence because there’s just nothing going on. I’m just totally freaking out, but from the outside perspective it looks like I’m in control.
It's a little known fact that one in three family pets gets lost during its lifetime, and approximately 9 million pets enter shelters each year. That's why it's a wonderful thing to get your pet microchipped and registered with your contact information because then they can be located and the owners can track where their pets are.
I love words. Sudoku I don't get into, I'm not into numbers that much, and there are people who are hooked on that. But crossword puzzles, I just can't - if I get a puppy and I paper train him and I put the - if all of a sudden I'd open the paper and there's a crossword puzzle - 'No, no, you can't go on that, honey. I'll take it.'
I've dated people where we traveled horribly together, and if one thing went wrong, it was horrible for them. Then I've been fortunate enough to have great traveling experiences where everything lined up and even when things went wrong, you just laughed about it. You learn so much about yourself when you're traveling with someone.
While visiting Costa Rica, I was inspired to hear that someone had donated a playground to a local school. So when I returned to L.A., one day I just called the principal of a nearby elementary school and asked what I could do. Five years later, I've helped make over nine schools, repainting, renovating, and fixing up playgrounds.
Back in '96, I was on "The Price Is Right" pointing at refrigerators, and "Extra," the TV show, came down. They were the first entertainment entity that put people up on the Internet, so they put my picture up, and America Online called the next day and said I got a zillion or whatever downloads. I didn't know what a download was!
Back in '96, I was on 'The Price Is Right' pointing at refrigerators, and 'Extra,' the TV show, came down. They were the first entertainment entity that put people up on the Internet, so they put my picture up, and America Online called the next day and said I got a zillion or whatever downloads. I didn't know what a download was!
You know in cartoons, the way someone can run off a cliff and they're fine, they don't fall down until they look down? My mom always said that was the secret of life. Never look down. But it's more than that. It's not just about looking. It's about never realizing that you're in the middle of the air and you don't know how to fly.
I just feel like it's fascinating to me just watching my own family, seeing my cousins have children here, seeing the generations go on, and seeing how people are still very connected to their home, but are actually, of course, Americans too. That sort of a hybrided sense of self is something that I yearn to see more of expressed.
I wasn't in school often enough to really belong to a 'clique,' but my friends all studied hard and got pretty good grades. They were good people with self-respect. I still like to be friends with people I admire something about; I really believe that we become like the people we're surrounded by, so I choose my friends carefully!
I broke down. I hid under the bed because I was afraid that somebody was going to come for me. I don’t know who that someone was but I was just so scared. Not a single person at any level of government took any note of me. No one checked to see if I had a place to live or food to eat, and at 14, I found myself basically on my own.
If I'm traveling, I'll take a film camera and a digital camera because sometimes there are moments where, if you've lost it, or if coming back and it accidentally goes through the X-ray machine and it gets overexposed, you might have had a really important moment to you and you would be really upset that you didn't have a back-up.
Becoming emancipated at 14, my life wasn't normal. I didn't have to go to school, so I didn't. I was rebellious by nature. I spent my 20s focusing on my company, Flower Films, and producing movies. Now that I'm almost 30, I would like to try other things in lie. I'm crazy about photography, and I want to take an art history class.
'Hollywood maids' are so idiotic. They grin at everything. I told Norman Lear I didn't want to play a maid because of that 'hee-hee/grin-grin' attitude, and he said, 'Who said I wanted that?' He told me he wanted two strong women that are the black and white of the same coin. I said, 'Oh, well - in that case, I'll be right there!'
On 'Rogue One,' we had these sets with tiny little buttons that would light up when you pressed them, and screens full of graphics, and it really felt like you were driving a spaceship. The level of detail; you'll be two meters away from where the action is, but there'll be a little detail there just in case the camera catches it.
I enjoy flitting around between hair colours. I find it fascinating when people think I'm naturally blonde, as I've only been blonde for about two seconds. People pay more attention to you as a blonde; it's also easier for people to assume you're a ditsy young actress. Of course, I am a ditsy young actress - well, maybe not ditsy.
I remember being seven and asking my mom if I was as pretty as Monique [my best friend in grade school]. And with all the love in the world, my mom looked at me and said, 'Oh, honey, you're so funny.' So, she doesn't lie to me...she answers the question by not answering and instead tells me what she thinks is my greatest strength.
The news of my pregnancy got out when I was in the middle of my first trimester. I hadn't even had a chance to tell my friends. That alone was so ugly. It made me hyper-protective ... I feel uncomfortable with people reading too much about my pregnancy or my relationship. It grosses me out. It's too sweet to read about or dissect.
I guess my main worry is that people will start hating what I hate about myself. I worry that everyone will think I am really annoying and just want me to shut up. Which would make so much sense because I annoy myself... I guess I want people to know that if they are annoyed with me, I get it, it's totally cool. Please forgive me.
By nature, I'm like a 90-year-old woman, so the whole internet and Twitter and Facebook, and all of that, I'm very new to. But, I am quite shocked at how much fun it is to be able to reach out to people, on a daily basis, and keep content out there, and how much it actually really does help promote things, in such a different way.
I think fame and all that madness, people taking your pictures all the time, drives me insane. It's a catch 22...the more they take pictures of you, the more upset you get by it and the more crazy you look and the more pictures they take of you. I think it's disgusting what's happened with that kind of celebrity culture right now.
I grew up in Chicago and was a huge fan of 'The Second City', so when I moved to L.A., I was looking for anything that resembled that... then I started 'The Groundlings', so I went to a show and it was very much like 'Second City'. I was so impressed that that same night I went backstage and I went up to the funniest person there.
For me, psychology and art interact and overlap in so many ways. Psychology is the study of the inner life and creativity comes from the imagination and a response to the environment, as you know. So they're both very similar in that way because it's about one's inner life interacting with the environment and what comes from that.
We as women put ourselves in this situation of feeling like we can’t take a risk, like in order to step out there we have to be perfect, because we’re scared that if we don’t say the right thing, or do the right thing, that we’ll reflect poorly on ourselves and our community, whether that community be women, people of color, both.
It's really important to like what you're wearing. It's pretty clear when I don't like what I'm wearing, and it's pretty clear if you got dressed for other people. Even if you're not looking the the best you can, or maybe your outfit isn't spot on, if it looks like you got dressed and you like it, you'll probably look cool anyway.
If someone needs to express their gender in a way that is different, that is okay, and they should not be denied healthcare. They should not be bullied. They don’t deserve to be victims of violence. … That’s what people need to understand, that it’s okay and that if you are uncomfortable with it, then you need to look at yourself.
As someone who has spent many years marveling at the brilliant and painstaking work of the doctors, scientists and researchers at St. Jude, I can attest firsthand to the bone-deep commitment these men and women have made in their fight against disease. They are at it around the clock - every hour of the day, every day of the year.
I think there need to be more female action heroines out there that are intelligent and not overly masculine and things like that so Id love to find - and real too. Not necessarily the superhero perfect archetype of what an action hero is represented as a lot of times. I would love to find that kind of action heroine role to play.
It's like so great to be in Toronto and to see everything that's in the books and everything they reference and to be able to hang out in those places and go to those bookstores and those comic book stores and those music stores, and like have that, from the books onto the screen, is so cool and I'm glad to have been part of that.
Real crime-beat investigative journalism does seem to be really dwindling, especially in this age with everything being centered around iPhones. Everyone's a journalist today, essentially. Every pedestrian on the street has the potential of capturing a big story on their mobile device and then selling it and making a lot of money.
And it interferes with your ability to be a good actress if you're constantly aware of yourself as a person. To me, it isn't valuable to think about how I'm coming off all the time if I'm trying to create a character, because that's a process that I love. It's like falling in love and surrendering to another person or a character.
Just wearing the corset means that you can never really relax from the moment that you put it on. So, there's a constant sort of strain and you have to hold yourself in a certain way. It's very uncomfortable. But again you instantly understand the repression that women feel and how much they were captives. It's sort of sad really.
When I was 28, I made this film called 'Drinking Buddies' that I starred in and produced, and we improvised the entire thing, and it was a complete exercise in freedom of expression in making something for only the purpose of making it, not for recognition or money or anything else, and it's still my favorite thing I've ever done.
Sometimes a child will get lucky and be placed with foster parents who are loving and supportive and who consider that child their own. But for many, that doesn't happen. Kids are moved around from home to home, to group home and institutions, until they are 18, when they are considered adults and the system is finished with them.
I've done a few costume dramas, and people say, 'What was it like wearing the costumes? Did they really help you with your character?,' and most of the time it doesn't make any difference. You're wearing something a bit weird, and it's sort of uncomfortable, but it doesn't really have a huge impact on the part that you're playing.
My parents live there, and I was born and raised in Scotland. I lived there for the first 11 years of my life, until my parents decided to take our family to France where we lived for a couple of years. We then moved back to Scotland, and that is where I feel most home - where I come back to myself, and I love more than I can say.
I can't tell you how many doctors try to sell me a facelift. I've even gone as far as having someone talk me into it, but when I went over and looked at pictures of myself, I thought 'What are they going to lift?' . . Frankly, I think that in the art of aging well there's this sexuality to having those imperfections. It's sensual.
In 1949, when I was 2, my family moved from Yonkers, NY, to a development of brick houses in Elmont, a Long Island suburb of New York City. What I remember most about the house was the glider on our porch. I used to sit there evenings close to my father, Victor, as he talked about the moon and the stars. He taught me to dream big.
In my late 20s, I realized that I had a very clear social conscience and strong opinions about things like diversity, equality, and education, and while I tried to become more politically literate, I just couldn't catch on. It felt like I had walked into a movie that had already started, and no one would explain what had happened.
I came to Los Angeles only after filming 'A Good Day to Die Hard,' when I was cast in the independent movie 'Delirium.' Director Lee Roy Kunz was looking everywhere for a Russian actress. He saw my photos, and only then he learned where I starred before! Eventually, I spent several months in the U.S., and we made the film quickly.