Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just moved into a new house, so I love spending time at home. Everything for me is all about self-care because I really feel that if I'm at my best, than I'm able to come to my job and really be feeling the best, so if I'm not working out or going on a hike, than I'm at home recharging and cooking dinner and hanging out with my cat.
Oddly, moving to L.A. had nothing to do with me wanting to be an actress. My mother had a friend who was willing to take us in for a month until we could get on our feet. So we lived on her floor. It was pretty traumatic, but I found my strength through my mother in that time because she never once made us feel like we wouldn't be OK.
Healing of every sort-physical, psychological, energetic, and spiritual-can take place over time or happen in the twinkling of an eye. That our loved ones in heaven know of our suffering and care deeply about us and the onward flow of our lives speaks once again of the love, presence, and connection extending beyond the veil of death.
Everywhere you look, there is a charity or a project in school to get involved in. In eighth grade, there was this program called CJSF, California Junior Scholarship Foundation. We were involved in soup kitchens and toy drives, and your school can set up something like that. If your school doesn't have a program like that, set one up.
Decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or, they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health, pushing bills to limit access to vital services, we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back... to the back alley?
Books have always been living things to me. Some of my encounters with new authors have changed my life a little. When I have been perplexed, looking for something I could not define to myself, a certain book has turned up, approached me as a friend would. And between it's cover carried the questions and the answers I was looking for.
I love music so much and that kind of takes away from the fact that I am missing out on some things. I have always known that I wanted to be a singer and I knew that meant sacrificing some things for my dream. When I am home I hang out with my friends and go to dances, so I try and partake in some of the activities that I miss out on.
The actual, original 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' I have vague memories of because I was pretty small, but I loved, loved, loved it. I have only those weird, visceral little-kid memories: I remember the extreme flat, two dimensional green that was their skin or the weird pizza with no sauce - it was just like yellow, drippy cheese.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of The Brady Bunch. Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying “hi” to everyone, whether they knew me or not.
It's nice to be thought of as attractive and all of that. On the other hand, it curtails you somewhat, too. They won't let me read for 'West Wing,' just to play, you know, a normal person. Or 'ER,' to play a doctor - the things I'm actually good at. I mean, I'm pretty good on foreign policy - they won't even let me come read for that.
Yes, I'm obsessed with health, which has been an interesting journey. I went down the raw-food diet route, but got ill. It was really hard, especially in Britain in winter, trying to survive on raw carrots. I became so ill and anemic, so I stopped that and became a vitamin junkie. I just ate lots of vegetables, exercised and breathed.
Friendship is anything that you get something out of that is very, very important to you. And that's why there are those people who are so close to you that you don't know how you'd live without them. And they are the ones that, even if they do something terrible, you have to keep. Otherwise, you're just going to be lost without them.
Despite the fact that Rouhani has been a long-time insider in a government that has committed countless human rights violations, and that he himself called for the execution of peaceful activists in 1999, many people inside and outside Iran are optimistic that he might indeed favor greater respect for the rights of the Iranian people.
I always listen to all kinds of different music from different years. I listen to the contemporary, but once in a while into eighties, you know just for fun, and sometimes classical too. So I have this big mix on my i-pod... Amy Winehouse, Gwen Stefani, OutKast, Jay-Z. I listen to trance, pop, everything. It really depends on my mood.
I began to see myself as someone who can help others understand diversity rather than feeling like a social outcast. Ellen taught me to not care about other people's opinions. She taught me to be truthful. She taught me to be free. I began to live my life in love and complete acceptance. For the first time I had truly accepted myself.
A lot of times, they can't hire actors just because there's this obligation that the audiences don't know who they are, and it's about making money. For me, the project that felt like all of it was 'Rachel Getting Married' because I had such a good time on that movie. Jonathan Demme, to me, is one of the most actor-friendly directors.
There is just something that people taught me in general for self-care, would just be to spend some time alone and to protect yourself. Learning to say no is something that helps in that, and what you're comfortable with and what you're not comfortable with, and finding the line. That's it. Otherwise it's just going to be really hard.
I think as more people get more aware, people get more defensive. And when I say that, I mean people who are more privileged, like men. People will think that by pointing out patriarchy and an oppression, that means that all men are horrible people, and they'll write that on social media, and I think that's something that's increased.
I think that's why Meryl Streep is working so much, because she looks like a woman we can all relate to. I look at her and I think, 'I'm chasing my kids, I've moved my parents in with me, I'm coping with food spills - that looks like me in real life'. Meryl looks like an unmade bed, and that's what I look like. To me, that looks true.
Most of life is hell. It’s filed with failure and loss. People disappoint you. Dreams don’t work out. Hearts get broken. Innocent journalists die. And the best moments of life, when everything comes together, are few and fleeting. But you’ll never get to the next great moment if you don’t keep going. So that’s what I do. I keep going.
I like to have a much greater base and know a lot more about my character before I begin to fill the person. So a lot of it really entails sit-downs with them, determining who she is, where she came from, and why she reacts a certain way, and then I was really able to expand upon a lot of that and create a lot of that story on my own.
Crucially we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness, with the Earth & every other living thing; we have just been insanely trying to figure out how to live with each other, billions of each other, only we're not living with each other our crazy selves are living with each other, and perpetuating an epidemic of disconnection.
I was talking recently with a friend of mine who's determined to never meet her heroes, and I have another friend who's been horribly disillusioned a couple of times. But I've had a wonderful ride with meeting people who have been my North Stars, and Bowie's definitely one of them. He feels like my cousin; like the cousin I never had.
So, first, I wanted to be a part of the project because I thought it was an important story to tell. On top of that, it's rare to find roles for strong, young, feisty women, especially in a military film. And I love that Suarez ends up being the moral compass of the story, and that she's also brave enough to stand up to all these men.
I'm a vegetarian and very much active in regards to how I feel about animal rights and protecting animals and giving animals a voice. But at the same time, I appreciate and respect other people's decisions to eat meat. The only thing that I hope is that people are educated, that they're aware, that they're living a conscious lifestyle.
I would like, in my life, to always be doing things I'm proud of. I know that probably won't happen all the time. But I'd prefer to be telling stories I can be proud of and understand why they're being told. I do watch a lot of films and TV, but sometimes I think: "Why the hell did you make that then?" I won't say what they are though.
I'm lucky right now because I'm not that famous, people will look at the work just as the work, and people respond to it pretty well. It's just hard to know exactly what group I need to meet and where I need to be. I think fame helps, but I want it to be separate as much as it can. Fame is just so weird, people just love famous people.
But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.
I used to be very interested in the history of women's rights in this country and in other countries. I tried to learn as much as I could about it, and more than anything, I would be called gay. It was phenomenal. But if a boy has something to say, he is appreciated; he's even popular. If a girl says something, it's instantly a threat.
...perhaps that is what ultimately unites us as a world: the fact that, no matter how prosperous a nation, how developed, all share the plight and embarrassment of having so many suffering children. We are united by our neglect, our abuse, our absence of love. Have we forgotten about the children, and thus forsaken the next generation?
Love does not terrify me. But the going away of it does. I have been made terribly aware of how everything can be wrenched away from you and your life torn apart. If I had known very secure nights all my life, if I had never seen or felt the fear of being tortured or deported or blown up into a million pieces, then I would not fear it.
It was my dream for years... to train. Dominic [Cooper] went and he's doing alright. But some people don't go and do brilliantly. Although I think there are things I missed from not having trained. I think I'd be more confident on stage had I gone because I think it means you're equipped with better vocal training and things like that.
People think being Elvira is a lot of fun - and it is - but I was doing a lot more bizarre stuff before then, just being a dancer and a showgirl and traveling around Italy in a band and working for Playboy Club, and later being a model and meeting a million and one people and being kind of a groupie... It's all been really interesting.
We're growing up with a very illiterate bunch of children who have somehow been taught that film is fact when, in fact, it's invention. Hopefully, an historical film will inspire people to go and read about the history but in the end it is a work of fiction and selection. As for the armour itself, no it wasn't particularly comfortable.
I love to do very long and complicated scenes. I like to have this impression that we are all working together, where you can see all the technicians and everybody is really doing the same thing at the same time. With close-ups, of course you have the crew there, but most of them are just around and it doesn't involve that many people.
Both TV and movies seem to be produced in a more similar way as time goes on. It used to be that movies were much bigger productions on every level and took much longer to shoot. I liked that. But with the advent of digital, everything can be done much quicker and cheaper, and that seems to be the goal of most movies and TV these days.
I was the singing voice of a cartoon character. I did dog food commercials. I did a lot of commercials, actually, and helped pay my rent and my classes. Then I'd get one good line or two good scenes. I was building my career and building my own experience and learning technically what it was like to be on a set and all of those things.
Golf has been such a gift in my life, and I've enjoyed it so much and enjoyed lots of wonderful times on the golf course with my husband first, and then I got to play in all these celebrity tournaments. I'm often the only female celebrity in the tournament, hence the term 'Token Chick.' So it's been such a great, great gift in my life.
I was on the yearbook staff, so I would take out film cameras and Nikons and take photos around school and at sporting events and things like that. We had a darkroom as well. I just loved it. I also saved up for a video camera to video my friends and cut and paste the videos together and I gave them to all of my friends for graduation.
When you're young, you're always wondering when you're actually going to feel like a grownup. And I think you probably fear it, in a sense, too. There's a danger to feeling like an adult... like this whimsical kid in you is going to die or something. And then all of a sudden, one day you kind of feel like an adult and it's really nice.
I was very disruptive. I was horrible. I didn't learn like all the other kids. I had to sometimes take my tests out in the hallways because I couldn't focus. But, my teachers would come see me in the plays and were like 'I don't understand how you can focus and be in the moment in a play and you go into math class and you can't focus.'
Ellen [Page] and I had only met a couple of times, but had mutual admiration for each other's work. When I first heard about the film [Into the Forest], I was excited to get a chance to work with one of my peers because it's usually one or the other. You don't get to work with all of the other actors that you're usually competing with.
I spend so much time with the brightest and most talented and well-rounded people. I've had the privilege of having long and very intellectual conversations with people, and sometimes I just sit there and listen. It's like a better version of a class. Even though I'm not sitting at a desk and in school, I'm still learning all the time.
Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.
I'm so blessed to be able to work with some of the best writers out there, and it's kind of like college with me sitting in a room with some of the best of the best and really taking it in and learning from them, but then also taking time to sit and tell them my stories - it's one of the biggest blessings that could have ever happened.
I used to dance a lot when I was younger. And I didn't want to stop doing it. I auditioned for drama school and then, luckily, I got my first job. There was never really a particular moment, more like moments of "I love this," or scripts that you read, or films that you watch, or plays that you see, that make you want to keep doing it.
I'm a woman that's living in this world of everybody telling everyone how they should look, and what they should be eating and how people can lose this much weight this fast, and it just kind of overwhelms our senses. If I could just make the tiniest bit of difference in getting rid of that because it is so annoying, I would love that.
For me, in general, it's always about the material. Obviously, it's about the material and hoping that someone wants to hire me for a job, too, but I've certainly seen films like 'Orphan' and movies like that where I know that if I had had the opportunity to read that script or had an opportunity to do it, I would have wanted to do it.
I exclusively attended public school... And I can honestly say that on the day of my graduation, if you had given me a pop quiz on history, science, or math, I would have in no way been able to pass it - despite the fact that I completely understood it at the time that it had been 'taught' to me, and had even made a good 'grade' on it.
There's an appetite for vigour in films. The camera loves a bit of movement. Movement is usually attached to younger people and men, and that's just the way it is. I think that it's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's a fact that there aren't going to be masses and masses of roles for older women because there isn't the audience for it.