Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you haven't noticed yet, working sucks. Unless you are a racecar driver or an astronaut or Beyonce, working is completely and utterly devoid of awesome. It is hard, it lasts all day, the lighting is generally fluorescent, and, apparently, drinking at your desk is frowned upon. If you ever needed to ruin someone's fun, I mean really poop a party, just move things to the workplace. Fun terminated.
Get in the habit of writing down three things you're grateful for every day. Studies show that in a two-minute span of time, done over 21 days in a row, you can actually rewire your brain. Your brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world for the positive versus the negative. Seeing things in a frame of positivity and gratitude is a muscle. You can strengthen this muscle through practice.
I found it liberating to sing on camera. On stage, you have to indicate having a thought, and the word you are singing must indicate it as well, but on camera, you can have ideas, you can take in all the stimuli that the character would be taking in, there's a freedom you get, and you don't have the obligation to transmit each idea to the back of the house. It felt so much closer to reality for me.
My purpose is to show people that you can take what God put inside of you, inside your heart, and you can live by it! Like, literally. Somebody might like to make shoes or make hats. You can literally live by that gift and no go get a nine to five job. I just to keep my purpose in front of everything that I do, and that is just reminding people that it's possible. That's what it's all about for me.
We need to have points of view from lots of different types of people. People who have different backgrounds, different parts of the world, who maybe perceive gender differently. We're in this time where we have social media, we have the ability to share so much, that I think that we need to create more space and more opportunity for people that are just outside of the typical cliched binary roles.
That's definitely true! It was before my father died, so I can't attribute it to an obsession with death. When I was seven, I loved those old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone. The Scarlet Claw was one of my faves. And I loved all the Halloween's and that film about the haunted house... Burnt Offerings, with Oliver Reed. Every birthday party was a slumber party and we'd watch horror films.
I wasn't doing it to shock anybody or to be rebellious or to get attention making "Heart-Shaped Glasses" with Marilyn Manson. I was more proud of that than anything because it took a lot of strength and bravery to put myself out there like that. It was a risk. I'm glad that I did it because usually the best things I've done have come from the biggest risks. Thirteen was a risk and that was amazing.
I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of the things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm...very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families.
If everything always went perfectly, I would feel like, When is the ball going to drop? Because good things don't always last. Maybe I'm a pessimistic person. When something just seems too good, I can't believe it. I come from a background where I was never told that I couldn't do something, so I'm very stubborn. I don't know if I believe in fate or destiny, but it kind of feels that way sometimes.
You never know how things are going to fit. So, you don't count your eggs until they hatch. You can't pre-project that. I mean, this was literally like a childhood fantasy of mine, to be able to work in action. You know, growing up on Disney films like Pocahontas and wanting to enter into that, or Aladdin and how he's fighting - being your own hero, being your own heroine is like every one's dream.
I wanted other women to know there's no shame in talking about it. People don't say they're pregnant until the second trimester. I intellectually understand that you don't want the whole world to know your business, but at the same time what does that mean? You don't tell your employers you're pregnant, but then when you miscarry no one knows you miscarried. Miscarrying is a horrible painful event.
..I find it incredible impossible not to cry when I hear Stevie Nicks's "Landslide," especially the lyric: "I've been afraid of changing, because I've built my life around you." I think a good test to see if a human is actually a robot/android/cylon is to have them listen to this song lyric and study their reaction. If they don't cry, you should stab them through the heart. You will find a fusebox.
I don't care what the press is about a person that I'm working with. I care about how they come to work every day. I don't care who broke up with who or who is sleeping with who or who went out where. I don't care what you do with your personal life. It's when people take their personal lives into a space where it affects their performance at work, that's when I would stop taking someone seriously.
I don't think I've ever done a character like this before, so I couldn't really draw from previous roles. I've been known for doing a lot of comedies in England, so I don't think that would have worked. I completely went from scratch, with this one, and used the research and what was in the script, and spoke to Chris. It's all from in my mind ,rather than drawing from previous experiences or roles.
Yes, there's something dangerous about turning people into token social activists. I was thinking about this recently with our pop-culture feminism, when feminism is such a buzzword in the media now. We're covering it in a way that we haven't before, but also in a way that's way more surface level. And while I think that there's some danger in that, I also think it's a great gateway for some people.
Education is power, it changes your whole life, it can create a life for yourself. So the more educated you are, the more you learn about what you care about, you become a more caring person. And if you can speak about what you care about to a person you disagree with, without denigrating or insulting them, then you may actually be heard. And you may even change their mind, or they may change yours.
I want a world without war. War never works it just kills. I want my children to never have to have a close contact with war. I want my children and future generations to grow up free and in a peaceful world. War is not freedom it is a malignant force imposed by men in power. We must change the views of people in power now and let them know that in a diplomatic and peaceful way issues can be solved.
To each his own. It's one of those things. How you build your familyyou have to know what you're capable of handling and how your children will relate to each other. Maybe if you have one child and that child has a lot of needs, you realize you cannot give more attention to another. Sometimes you just know as a parent. We felt we could handle more children, and we have a very happy, very full home.
If you can imagine the area and the land in Cambodia, I mean there are hardly any roads in big parts of the country. The roads they have, in the rainy season, become just mud. So, if you’re somebody that has just one leg, or blind with no arms and you have children and you’re trying to work, and earn some money, and take care of your home, it’s hard enough to be a parent and do all of that normally.
People think, "Oh my god, you've been doing this job for so many years, it must get boring." It's like, "No, hell no," because I get to sing, I get to dance, I get to be on TV and in films, I get to do merchandising, licensing, show up at conventions, write, or take photographs for my book. There are so many different things going on for me that it never gets boring. It's always fun and interesting.
If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don't, that's wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don't shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn't get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop.
In the make-up trailer there are always lots of trashy magazines and it's always quite pleasant to go through them in the morning. That's when I realized, "Oh my, it's quite nasty". There was a lot of pressure on Daniel Craig. He was quite nervous and paranoid, especially in the Bahamas on the beach, lots of paparazzi. Even on me in France - nasty things! Like I was going to get fired, I was so bad.
Albert and I would spend hours and hours looking at them. Cleo had this big magnifying glass on his desk, and we'd find centipedes and grasshoppers and beetles and potato bugs, ants . . . and put them in a jar and look at them. They have the sweetest little faces and the cutest expressions. After we'd looked at them all we wanted to, we'd put them in the yard and let them go on about their business.
People see everything through a filter of them, of their own selves. And it's like, you can't be depressed because somehow that has something to do with me. And it's like - no, it doesn't. This is my brain. This is my body. These are my emotions. It's got nothing to do with you. You don't want me to get help for whatever reason you don't want me to get help. But I'm out here, and I need to get help.
I refused to worry about something I could not change, and I still refuse. Look, I'm like any other woman. All this evolved b.s. that I'm telling you is my mantra. It's not something I practice naturally. I had to surrender to not worrying about the way I looked, how much I weighed, because that's just part of the journey of having a baby. I am not a woman whose self-worth comes from her dress size.
People expect it to be easy because there you are, out there, doing the thing that you want and making lots of money out of it. But, you know, I'm not that smooth. I can get clumsy around certain people. Like if I were to sit down and think, 'OK, I'm really famous, how am I going to conduct myself in public?' I wouldn't know who that person would be! It would be a lot easier if I could, but I can't.
I've tried to divide my time between the US and New Zealand, but it's difficult, and I suddenly realized that I like acting here in Los Angeles anyway. Because when you first come here; especially from New Zealand, you go, This is the ugliest, nastiest, grayest, smoggiest town in the world, and then your scale of beauty adjusts and suddenly you think, Oh, isn't it beautiful, not too much smog today!
It was probably very difficult to go from Chinese and then suddenly go to kindergarten and start speaking English; it's very hard to transition back and forth when you are in that pivotal age. It's also hard to transition back, but if I was immersed in the country for a given amount of time, you are surrounded by it, everyone is speaking, you are learning new things, you are practicing all the time.
Everybody f-king does it. I suppose I can't say 'everybody' because I don't know for sure, but come on...It's just the tiniest sprinkle of Botox twice a year. I think most women do 10 units, but that freezes the face and you can't move it. This is just one unit, and it's just sprinkled here and there to take the edge off...Perhaps it's not wise to put that in a magazine? But I ain't hiding anything.
I get mad at my girlfriends when they say things about their neck or something, "My neck is a disaster," and I'm like, "Come on, you don't even believe that." You're taking that from the outside world, you know? You look amazing, you're beautiful, you're 40, you're in the prime of your life. I'm not interested in fighting it at all. I don't think anyone else is wrong for trying to fight it, however.
These past years have been really transitional for me in every aspect - personally, emotionally and professionally. I was excited and nervous and anxious because I literally had nothing to fall back on. This is my own thing, it's all me. I spent a year working on the record and really wanted to spend time on what it was going to represent and how it was going to represent me in this time in my life.
The internal sexism within womanhood is very predominant in Hollywood, because we all want to be successful. There's a plug to it: You all have to be skinny! You all have to be pretty! You all have to be likable, because that's the formula that works. On an executive level. On a power level. And it's not always the same working with black people, because of the internalized racism. The colorism.
Obviously, ["Fences"] is a character-driven piece in every sense of the word, and Denzel [Washington] knows the actor. He gave us two weeks of rehearsal. He is a truth teller, and he is a truth seer. So he knows when something is not going in the right direction, and he will call you on it. But, he knows the word to use to unlock whatever is blocking you. So I think he's fabulous and he's a teacher.
Also, with acting and dancing I portray a predetermined character and story for the most part, with music I have the creative freedom to create a song on a whim with whomever I choose and at whatever time I choose to do it. It's more liberating artistically and that's why I've stuck with it. It's a good balance to be able to portray a character and also be myself in avenues that I'm passionate about.
Most of the people that I've worked with when shooting films that I really respect, there is a point which you do become obsessed in a good way. And because it's a collaborative medium, you're not by yourself in a room tearing your hair out, you're in a room with a bunch of people. And we're all tearing our hairs out, or trying to get something right, or caring deeply about something. But that's fun.
I was under contract with Walt Disney at the time. I was co-starring in my second season of a show called, Texas John Slaughter. The Andy Griffith Show hired me to play Thelma Lou. I only worked when they called me. I would do an episode in two days and I got paid $500. After all the federal, state and local taxes were taken out and then my agent's commission I only got $200 some dollars per episode.
I'm actively working hard on learning to appreciate yourself no matter what. If what someone else says can easily derail you, it means your sense of self isn't that firmly established in the first place. It's an inside job. You're beautiful and worthy and totally unique. People insult each other based on their own insecurities - even though it may feel personal, it really never is. Really. Seriously.
No, I like normal life but I will go crazy if I'm not working. I'll say to my mom, "I'm going crazy! I'm going stir crazy!" I love my house. I love my family. I love my animals. Sometimes, I just want to work whether its on location here in Michigan or back in LA. I just want to work, work, work. It's what I want to do with the rest of my life so, yes, I do go a little bit crazy when I'm not working.
I do find it extraordinary that men are so prepared to pay for your dinner here. That simply never happens in England. When I first got together with Len, I couldn't understand why it seemed like he was always trying to get into my side of the car. He was holding the door open for me! I don't know what you teach American men in school here, but you have to keep it up, because it's extremely charming.
I think women are not interested in being like "the man" or having the same position as "the man." Women want to be women with equal rights. At this point now, we're very clear about that. I don't want to be the same as him. I want to be me with the same opportunity. So I think that's the difference of today than the fight that my mom had to fight, which was a little bit different and as complicated.
If you raise children, you forget what age they are. I mean you don't literally forget, but you treat a 13-year-old like she's 10 and there's a big difference in those three years and they can't stand it. They want to be treated like they're 17 when they're 13. And sometimes you can't help thinking of them as if they were 10 or 10 months old because it's all so recent. So we do overprotect sometimes.
The process of socialization is nowhere near complete at age five or six, when modern children start spending up to half their waking hours taking their cues from other people's children. Because they accompany their parents' daily routine, homeschooled kids spend plenty of time interacting with people of all ages, which I think most people would agree is a far more natural, organic way to socialize.
I was a voracious reader and the library fed my curiosity, imagination and my soul. I read by the shelf - biographies, fantasy - all and everything fed my dreams. Then as an adult whenever I would go on location the first thing we would do as a family is sign up at the closest library. Not only would we find books, but what was happening in that town, because the library is the head of the community.
Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.
No one is banging my door down to be a superhero. I don't know how good I would be. I have low bone density, so I don't know if anyone really wants to put me in a cape and chuck me out a window. But a lot of my friends, who are great actors and who come from film, are doing TV because that's where the opportunities are. For us, it does feel like it's similar to making the movies that we used to make.
Every time you are looking for love, and you're making yourself available for love, it may not come in the package that you had dreamed of. It might come in something completely different. You might've thought, "I'm going to be with a tall, dark, and handsome." or "I'm supposed to be with a model woman who looks like she can walk on the runways." But, it might be just a little curvy girl from Oakland!
I have always been really picky about the films that I make, because I think that there's such an incredible opportunity to bring up questions when you're making movies, and some of my favorite films bring up big questions. They are movies that, when you walk away from it, it hits you as something deeper, and it's a great, fun way to be able to bounce around some of these harder concepts in our heads.
In the beginning, it was odd to have so much attention brought to my body type. I thought, "Uh-oh, brace yourself." But everyone has been so positive. During the first season, a woman came up to me at dinner and said, "I just want to thank you - watching you has made me proud of my body." I thought, What an amazing thing for someone to say! To make anyone feel good about themselves makes me feel good.
I feel very fortunate to be currently in the position where I can choose to be an actor, writer, director, or all of them at the same time. With being a mom, I've recently had a priority shift that has sort of thrusted itself on my existence, but I tend to use all experiences as something to work with. Anything that is profoundly, energy shifting - like having a child - is fodder for creative thought.
Beyoncé says it was Mathew Knowles, her father, who made her understand discipline and work ethic, what it means to come in early before class starts to stretch, or to work on your dégagés or your pirouettes or whatever it was. I was a turner! So to come in early and then to stay afterward and to just soak up everything that the teacher has, that's really what it's about - the striving for excellence.