Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was a tomboy running around in the garden. I used to play on a local cricket team. I grew up with all boy cousins, for the most part, and my brother. My mother was in the kind of late-sixties, early-seventies origins of female emancipation. And she was very much like, "You're not going to be defined by how you look. It's going to be about who you are and what you do."
It's a little scary when you - I got - I just got a box to my house for my birthday from this girl who writes - I mean it's a box of like - just like body lotions and stuff like this. And like this little box of dog toys in there. There's - you name it, candles, it's like this little box that she put together for my birthday. But she wrote in it and it came to my house.
In Paris, when the picture came out [Casablanca] they weren't too pleased with it. They didn't like the political point of view. The picture was taken off immediately and was never sold to television. A while ago it was brought in and opened in five theatres in Paris, as a new movie. They had a big gala opening where I appeared and people were absolutely crazy about it.
I've always been an environmentalist, but my life changed the day I had children. I realized that I wasn't doing enough to protect the planet. People need nature, and of course I want my children to have the best possible opportunity in life. I also realized how important it was for me to raise them to be conscientious people that are aware of their impact on the earth.
I love Renée Zellweger, she can do no wrong in my eyes. I relate to every character she embodies, because she has no pretense. I also love Amy Adams: She's so kind and talented, and whenever I watch her I think, I want to be her friend-I've seen Enchanted many times with my daughter. Meryl Streep, of course. And I love what Cate Blanchett brings to every movie she does.
I'm definitely a perfectionist. I started entertaining so young. I think naturally my personality is that of a perfectionist, and then on top of that, growing up in the industry I became very objective and analytical of myself early on and I find myself doing that in everything. It works good in my work, but sometimes it can be annoying, I imagine, to people in my life.
One thing that I don't think I do is play characters. Once you start claiming that you can do something that you're not, you're crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, "Wow, I did not know that that response could come from me. I did not know that I had that in me." And so, the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper.
We do things tastefully but we do a lot. My mom has a lot of traditional Christmas things she likes us to do together. We get fresh greens and make garlands for the house. She has a list of things to do, we bake cookies together and deliver them around the neighborhood. My mother likes to make gifts for everyone we know, including all my friends. She remembers everyone.
I've really come to learn that bisexuality is a true, legitimate sexual orientation. It's not about crossing over from straight to gay, which is an idea that Alice has to argue a lot with her friends. They all want her to stay in their camp, but Alice is looking for love, and she literally doesn't care if it ends up being with a man or a woman. I think that's beautiful.
In real life, I don't fall in love with the guy who wines and dines me, I fall in love with the flaws and the humanity. When I see someone get embarrassed or when I see them wearing their heart on their sleeve, I want to see that in movies. I hate seeing the put-together people, and then it makes everyone think they're supposed to look like that. It's all a bunch of BS.
To me, the producing falls into the same as acting. It requires so much time out of your life, and I take it very personally, I realize. So if I do something, it just has to be something I love and I don't want anyone else to do. When I open projects, maybe something will appeal to me. I think I'm not opening them because I don't want anything to appeal to me right now.
I believe in the runner's high, and I believe that those who are passionate about running are the ones who experience it to the fullest degree possible. To me, the runner's high is a sensational reaction to a great run! It's an exhilarating feeling of satisfaction and achievement. It's like being on top of the world, and truthfully... there's nothing else quite like it!
I'm so lucky to play Sugar because she does get the best wardrobe. Sugar is always in something fluffy, feathery, animal print-y, sparkly she doesn't ever stop with the amazing wardrobe. There's a neon number I thought, when I saw the wardrobe in my trailer, that everyone was going to be wearing neon, but no - just Sugar. And it was fantastic it was so fun, I love neon!
The main thing you can change is how you perceive yourself. Stop looking in the mirror and realize that you're living for yourself, not other people ... I have belly fat like everybody else, and I don't want to be airbrushed on the cover of a magazine. I don't want someone to swap out my stomach with a supermodel. I don't want dirty old men looking at me in my underwear.
Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It's a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That's how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We'll celebrate Kwanzaa for our girl. We'll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We'll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church.
You read something and you know it's not there yet. There's a little section here that... this part's good but that is a little not, it doesn't quite work. That doesn't quite work. That's easy. To say, "OK, now, this is what I think will fix it." That's harder. And most people can tell you what's wrong with something. Very few people can say what they would do to fix it.
've had good friends who got married after they've been together for years and they've said that it was the "next step" for them. Or, they've said, "You just can't bail out anymore." And I've wondered, What made you think you could just bail out before [the wedding]? You don't invest that kind of time and energy with somebody and then just go, "All right, see you later."
If I had it my way, I would have just kept it short forever. Of course, men like long hair. There's no two ways about it. The majority of the boys around me were like, 'Why did you do that? That's such an error.' And I was like, 'Well, honestly, I don't really care what you think!' I've never felt so confident as I did with short hair - I felt really good in my own skin.
I'm actually big into meditation, transcendental meditation, and that really helps create not only a sense of balance, but all the other stuff this is gonna sound cliché... serenity and kind of a calm state of mind. And not that I'm like that all the time, but it helps me deal with life's ups and downs, coming from more of a centered place. Also it helps with creativity.
I just thought I‘d never look good in what everybody else wore. So there’s no point trying. You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t look like everybody else. Be you. That’s our gift and we’ve got to celebrate that, but it does take ages. I was wracked with self-doubt for years. I get spasms of it even now – I’m not indelibly self-confident.
I am grateful to learn from their mistakes, because I am not injecting s- into my face. I see them and my heart breaks. I think, 'Oh God, if you only know how much older you look.' They are trying to stop the clock and all you can see is an insecure person who won't let themselves just age. I also have a fiancé who will put a gun to my head if I touch my face in any way.
There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. And wouldn't you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day.
You can't just be talented: You have to be terribly smart and energetic and ruthless. You also have to become necessary to people, by working hard and well and bringing more than your bones and your skin to the project. Don't just show up. Transform the work, yourself, and everybody around you. Be needed. Be interesting. Be something no one else can be--and consistently.
I definitely, at times, felt the pressures of life similar to the pressures anyone would feel growing up. The only difference was that maybe more people were aware of mine. But, if anything, I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.
The first song I ever learned to sing and play on the piano was 'I Remember Sky' when I was 10 years old. I remember thinking, This is the most beautiful song I will ever hear. And that remains true for me to this day. His music is the sole reason I wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to sing music that transports us to the most important place one can travel, our hearts.
I don’t want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson – who I have nothing against, but I don’t want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every single SAT word I’ve every learned to prove, like, ‘Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.’ I don’t want to have to do that. I resent having to prove that I’m not a retard – but I do. And part of it is my own fault.
If you're intuitive and you have a desire for people to be happy and you want equilibrium and you want life to be good, then you'll worry. But we need to embrace the idea that, "No, I'm putting that aside, over there, in a box. I'll open that box when I wake up in the morning and deal with it then." I really find that men tend to do that, and it's great to be able to do.
You're inviting hysteria with your boobs that are nearly showing nipple and your skirt that's nearly showing muff. You're exciting this hysteria that leads to a lack of control, which then leads to, "It wasn't my fault." But naked, I have all the power because I got there before you did, and what is actually there is vulnerable, life-giving and hasn't been tampered with.
My fan interactions are really, really special. They're one of the highlights of this job for me, because I go out and do these conventions all across the world and meet all of these young girls - girls that look like me, and girls that look nothing like me, that are excited and empowered to see a woman of color on television. I'm really grateful for the fans that I have.
We talked about trying to create an image that would somehow, to an audience, create the sense of awe, wonder and shock that the troops must have felt that their monarch - and a female monarch - went to the frontline of battle and was prepared to lay down her life. This speech is so well known and has been done in virtually every version of the events of Elizabeth's life.
Germany is a country that has absolutely had to since the Second World War ask itself massive moral questions. And it's reforged its identity based on culture. I mean, the amount of artists living and working in Berlin is unparalleled. It's one of the strongest economies, not only in Europe, but globally, and it's because of its understanding of the importance of culture.
The cool thing about what I'm doing, I feel, is that with the Internet, I do my Twitter and I have a blog, and I personally answer as many e-mails as I can, and thank people. I'm going to be on House next week, and people are like, "Oh my gosh, Felicia's on House!" And it's almost as if I'm their cousin, or just a friend or a neighbor who did that. Vs. some famous person.
It's really hard to find things that are worth leaving them for. [Balancing work and motherhood is] really hard. One night in Nashville, my son was screaming with a terrible stomachache. I was like, 'I have to get out of here!' but we had to finish. My friend Jenno, a mother of three who was producing, was great, reminding me that nine times out of 10, they just have gas.
I used to have to downplay my sexuality because I wanted to be taken so seriously as a thespian and as an artist and as an actor, so I'd play crack heads and down trotting women and disguise myself, and I think as I've gotten older, I become more comfortable with who I really am and all parts of me knowing that my physical self doesn't diminish me in any way or my talent.
I got on stage and I went, "Oh wow. No stage fright." I couldn't do public speaking, and I couldn't play the piano in front of people, but I could act. I found that being on stage, I felt, "This is home." I felt an immediate right thing, and the exchange between the audience and the actors on stage was so fulfilling. I just went, "That is the conversation I want to have."
I kind of don't believe in actors directing themselves. Obviously some people have done it well, but I don't see how I could. It's funny that you ask, because I've just been thinking that maybe I'd rather direct The Bell Jar than act in it. It's a huge leap to go from a short to a feature, so I'm tentative - I'm like, Well, that's just so triple-type-A personality of you.
I don't think I have the stomach Veronica has. I think I have the determination and the stubbornness and a little bit of the go-get-em. But I think I'm about 20 percent more girl than Veronica is. There's a lot of Veronica that hits home with me, the sort of feisty area. But I think that I have a little bit more girl. I'd scream my head off if I saw a body in the freezer.
I've always enjoyed acting, but there's a part of me that's shied away from living a celebrity life. I don't feel comfortable being noticed all the time. Sometimes I even fantasize about doing things other than acting. But I can remember being back on set the third day of my latest project and going, "Ahh, this is what I have to do for a living." It's what makes me happy.
There wasn't a big tradition of comedy at Dartmouth. More than that, there wasn't really anything artsy going on in Hanover, or even in New Hampshire. The cool thing about the school is that there's nothing for people to watch, so if you were to do a play or a sketch or an improv troupe, it was always packed. There's nowhere else for anyone to go. But there was no comedy.
Nobody who comes out of the movie [Aquarius] focuses on those [sexual] scenes, because they are not the heart of the film. They are a consequence of the story, but I don't remember hearing audiences talking about them afterward. They came out discussing themes of resistance, history and memory. They're talking about the beauty of the self and how it can become demolished.
A belief in feminism is a belief in personal freedom - the freedom to live a life free of fear of violence, to select a fulfilling career and be compensated fairly, to choose when to start a family, to marry whom you love. I want everyone, regardless of gender, to live a life free of restriction or fear, able to pursue their own personal brand of happiness and fulfillment.
Wayne Wang, the director, really helped me become a more mature actress. When I first started filming, I was really over the top. He just helped bring me down and make me real. That was really wonderful, a really wonderful experience. Also, what I learned about filming is it takes forever. I mean, there are so many different angles and shots. I mean, it just takes forever.
I think it comes down to the type of personality that the performing arts seem to attract. And that's outgoing, very sensitive - sometimes incredibly insecure - people, that for some reason need a lot of validation. They have a lot that they have to get out, and they choose one of the hardest professions in the world in which to exist, being as sensitive as you need to be.
My first ones were The Young Rascals. I made out with Dino Danelli, the drummer, in the alley behind the City Auditorium. Then I met Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. This is all way, way back in the day. Later I got in the big leagues, like chasing around The Rolling Stones. And I hid in the bus for Paul Revere & The Raiders. And The Zombies.
I stopped trying to chase the perfect place to be, and realized the perfect place is with your loved ones and your closest friends, around the dinner table, over a good meal, talking about the past year and the year to come and things that you want to change in your life. You hear their stories and talk about things you'd like to see happen in the world. That's what we do.
Here's a history lesson: when men took power of their lands, all of a sudden, women became a prize. In order for us to be protected, we had to make sure that we had our partner on our side. We were put in a position where our vulnerability was a life and death scenario. And we were taken advantage of, and we were put in a certain place that we had never been put in before.
I definitely wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be on TV, I didn't want to be famous, I didn't want to be anyone in particular; I just wanted to do it. I see young people now who look at magazines, or American Idol and their goal is to have that lifestyle - to have good handbags, or go out with cute guys from shows, or whatever. But I definitely wanted to be an actor.
This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them.
Nobody understands that by the time the addiction has set in the alcoholic is mandated to drink ... he cannot not drink! Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'Jiminy Cricket, I feel sensational! My life is really in great shape! I think I'll become an alcoholic!' I firmly believe that when a shaking-to-pieces alcoholic says he needs a drink or he will die, he means it.
My father never feared death. He never saw it as an ending. I don't know why Alzheimer's was allowed to steal so much of my father before releasing him into the arms of death. But I know that at his last moment, when he opened his eyes - - eyes that had not opened for many, many days - - and looked at my mother, he showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love.