Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I took a couple of classes in clowning, but that was more like Lucille Ball kind of slapstick, not Ringling Brothers. But we had to do things silently, and the teacher would do this running commentary. 'Does this make Clown sad? Oh, Clown doesn't like that, does Clown?' Always 'Clown.' Never a name.
My first memory of the Harry Potter series was my little brother just falling into those books and not resurfacing until he was done. That J.K. Rowling got an entire generation reading is extraordinary - I'm amazed, thrilled, and proud to now be portraying one of that phenomenal writer's characters.
In L.A., it's very easy to be healthy, because everybody there is so health conscious that no matter where you go, everybody is exercising or eating very healthy, and they have a lot of farmers markets. The problem is when you go on location or I go home to Wisconsin. That's where it gets difficult.
I always feel more grounded and stable when I have balance in my life; I'm a Libra! I'm most often surrounded by people, so what I usually crave is time alone. If I can have even a twenty-minute walk or swim and another twenty quiet minutes to myself at night, I can be much more giving all day long.
It took me a while to warm to the '20s costumes on 'Downton.' I love it when women accentuate their curves, and that era was all about hiding them. The shapes they wore then were in tune with female empowerment. Cutting off their hair and hiding their busts was a way of saying, 'We're equal to men!'
I have an amazing stylist; she's called Rebecca Corbin Murray... I go around to her living room, and it's sort of exploding with dresses, and we go through them all, and she's so good at picking things she knows I'll like, and we work together. She's taught me absolutely everything; she's brilliant.
Before it was decided that I was going to be adopted, my mother was going to abort me. I was born with tangled legs; they never thought I'd be able to dance... without knowing it, as a child I overcame a lot thanks to really doting, loving parents and a great family and a hard work ethic on my part.
Now I'm taking some classes, I'm going to school for film, and I think I'm going to end up back in the industry in one capacity or another. I'm not sure where just yet. I kind of stepped away from it for a few years. I thought I was done with it. But I grew up in it. It's such a big part of my life.
Sometimes on the way to your dream you get lost and find a better one. It is okay to change your mind. If you thought you always wanted to be a doctor only to discover after medical school that what you really wanted to do was open a bakery--open a bakery. Life is too short not to follow your heart.
Sometimes you just work, you work, you work, and you have no life, no boyfriend, you have no more friends, no more nothing, you just make movies, and you're tired, and you don't know why. Then everybody says, 'Oh you are so lucky, you are working!' And you're like, 'Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's so great!'
In this age of vampires, what I love about 'True Blood' the most is that it's a post-modern take on it. 'Sookie Stackhouse' series author Charlaine Harris and 'True Blood' creator Alan Ball turned that whole mythology upside-down... It's not just about vampires. It's about a lot of different things.
In everything I do, I like to set the idea for girls that they can do anything. I was really moved by Hillary Clinton's speech when she lost the election - she didn't want young girls to feel like it wasn't possible and wanted them to know a female president will eventually happen. That's important.
I have a real passion for playing a role that's a strong female character, that's just not typical, with a lot of heart, not an easy sell of a movie, not real commercial. It doesn't have to be a big movie, but I'm just looking for something that I really, truly, 100 percent believe in and am behind.
My love of music comes from as long as I remember. I begged my mum to learn piano for a year when I was 4; she wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wanted to be Chuck Berry when I grew up! We were a very musical family; my mum would play guitar, and her, my dad and aunt would sing and harmonize!
I feel like I just have such the blood and bones of a New Yorker that I can almost imagine better, like, giving up the fight and not being able to afford the city and going out West, keeping a small place here, and then when I'm like 80, coming back here, living on the park and going to the theater.
I live in Surrey, but up until the age of eight I lived in London. And the way I heard about this 'Peter Pan' film was there was an open-call audition that I'd heard about, or read about, and I just thought, 'Oh, I'll go along for the fun.' Because I never dreamed in a million years I'd ever get it.
Art and activism seem to go together naturally, the idea being that if you're an entertainer, you can have a voice, and if you have a voice, you can make a difference. But if I were not an actress, I would still try to extend myself beyond my little micro-universe of my job, family and personal joy.
If someone's carrying a gun or a knife it's not a nice thing. They aren't going to feel that comfortable with it. It's a scary position to put yourself in. You don't choose to do that unless you feel there's absolutely no other option and you're forced to carry a weapon in order to protect yourself.
Though I am born into a film family, I hardly had much exposure to shooting during my growing years. My first film actually taught me about the breakdown of shots in a film. My aim is to do three memorable roles in the next five years; films I can be really proud of. And I want to work with the best.
Shakespeare was the thing that started me off on that train, you know, and every one of his plays. There are so many different characters, and the wonderful thing about being in an all-girls school was I got to play them all, you know. So I got to play Mercutio and Oberon and Malvolio - it was great.
There is a group of us that met through Howard Klein's class in Los Angeles. Howard Klein is a prominent acting teacher. We got together and did this short Night Music that was such an amazing experience, Guy and I were thinking, 'Okay, what do we do next?' So he wrote this next movie of his, Loulou.
Once you play with these scenes and you're outlining it, again and again, and telling each other the narrative, and telling it to people you know, trying to make sure that the mathematics of the story work, you feel that those are in place, and the actual writing and final draft doesn't take as long.
Part of being an actor is the rhythm of the life of being an actor, and that involves coming together with a group of people, making something together that is intense and requires a lot of intimacy, and then walking away from it with the possibility that you will never see any of those people again.
I missed the television train at some point. I don't know what happened, but now I've created a complex about it. I'm missing out on what everybody's watching, and now I can't even begin to think about starting to watch a television show because it's been so long. I don't even have a Netflix account.
To be a great director, what does it mean exactly? It's not only about a great director, but also about being able to rely on the very special chemistry that goes between them. It not only has to be a great director, but the great director has to make his relationship to you, the actor, very special.
I want our children's children to be free to walk safely down the street, girls to attend school, and women to work. I hope we continue to have freedom to wear what we want, worship how we want, study what we want, publish what we want while assuming personal responsibility for one's moral character.
Some women work while they are pregnant, but not me. That was a choice I had made. That's when I took a break. Men can work at whatever stage they are; whether they turn daddy, they still have their own thing. But women can't afford that because by being mothers, they have to be there for their kids.
It's a wonderful profession, and it opens lots of doors, and I think it's quite right that people can accuse actors and actresses of being dilettante, but you learn on every job, whatever it is, the process moves you on in some way, and yeah, I want to expand my knowledge of our existence, I suppose.
Mum left school at 15, and after a few years of modelling and dating jazz musicians, was married by 21 to my father, Mike Taylor, a journalist on the 'Daily Mirror.' They had my brother and me pretty quickly and had split up by the time I was two. I don't really have any memories of them as a couple.
Chris Guest has his own form. It's a way of working that is really intense, and you can commit a lot, and you focus a lot. You get to bring a lot. You get to bring things maybe you haven't seen before. You're asked to care a great deal for these people who you're playing and create heart and empathy.
Because I do so many action-oriented films, I started working with stunt people doing fight training, then I found it to be just great exercise. Also I like to be fit, so I've continued on with fight training. Right before I got to do 'Conan,' I was fighting off four guys. Its great fun. And strange.
I first started acting in primary school, just doing little plays. And from the moment I began, something just went 'click' inside me. Suddenly I wasn't shy anymore. Instead I felt confident and happy. I can remember the enormous sense of relief it gave me. I loved the feeling of making people laugh.
I learned at a very early age that life is a battle. My family was poor, my neighborhood was poor. The only way that I could get away from the awfulness of life, at that time, was at the movies. There I decided that my big aim was to make money. And it was there that I became a very determined woman.
I just want to do everything. As broad as that seems, it's kind of the plan. There are so many different genres out there to do, so many different characters to play, so many different amazing actors and directors to work with. I'm just following my gut, and if it's speaking to me, then I'm doing it.
An actor's responsibility is to play a character truthfully. That's their responsibility. That's where it ends. If they choose to use their reach and accessibility in order to further something that matters to them, that's their choice and that's great - but it's not for anybody to choose it for them.
I always knew I wanted to be in films but didn't want anyone to taunt my parents. So I excelled in studies. I was a topper in school and college, so when I decided to become a model, people said, 'Oh your daughter is modeling,' so at least my parents could say, 'Yeah but she also came first in class.'
I think you get to see, through the different cult members, why people are attracted to a group like this. Everyone is there for a different reason and from a different background. That was part of what was interesting for us, in researching cults and exploring it. A lot of this happens in California.
'That's What She Said' is not Hollywood's standard picture of women: preternaturally gorgeous, wedding obsessed, boy crazy, fashion focused, sexed up 'girl' women. These are real women, comically portrayed, who are trying to wrestle with the very expectations of womanhood that Hollywood movies set up.
The coronation is a symbol of power, but it's not a symbol for us the people. It's a symbol for that person, who is a human, to become a higher being and become one with God. The church, the scepter, and the crown have been around forever. And the line of kings of England goes back thousands of years.
I still havent got over the fact that I wont be the only person seeing the film. Im used to watching home videos of when I was little, singing Barbie Girl and stuff, and nobody sees them except the family. Now, there will be loads of people going to see The Golden Compass. At least, we hope they will.
I portray female characters, so I have the opportunity to change the way people look at them. Even if I wasn't consciously doing that, it would happen anyway just because of how I present as a woman, or as a person. I present in a way that's not stereotypical, even if I'm playing a stereotypical role.
I loved reading Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen, and I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives. Maybe that has something to do with having an incomplete family, being an only child. All I know is I loved to pretend, and all that was in tandem with my wanting to be an actress.
The film I do doesn't have to be a film that only my kids can watch. My kids will watch films, but I will decide what they watch and not. My aim is to play different characters and not be stuck in a mould. Just because you are a mom and a wife doesn't meant you have to play those roles, even in films.
My sisters used to learn dance, and I used to stand behind them and dance. So my guruji suggested that I also learn, as I seemed interested. I started learning at the age of three and was always on stage for something or the other. My mother is proud of me, and clearly my artistic bent comes from her.
I did a lot of commercials starting in about '75, yeah. Well, not 'a lot'; I never was a big old commercial gal, but I made a good living. I didn't immediately make 'a living' at commercials; the first year I made maybe a living was about '80. I had a great year in '85. I had a nice little supplement.
I don't think it's a sad thing for a woman to not be in a relationship if she doesn't want to be. I feel like nobody looks at men who aren't in relationships and like, I don't know. It seems to be something looking at women like oh that's sad. But you have to look at what they want out of their lives.
I like complex characters. I've been very, very lucky to portray, in these past three years, characters that are strong and fragile at the same time. It's those characters that I'm looking for. In the last year and half I played three different religions, and that allowed me to educate myself so much.
I didn't take theater or anything. We didn't have a very good theater program. It was in western Utah - was a really small school. It wasn't developed. We didn't have the funds to do anything like that, but I did act all through high school in films because Disney Channel would shoot movies out there.
I have, indeed, lived most of my life overseas, but I've returned repeatedly to work in film, special television productions, and the New York theater. There have also been tributes and similar occasions that have called me back to Hollywood. I've returned so often, I almost feel that I've never left.
I think Japans work really hard, and when they have a chance to listen to music, they just go crazy. And the Ramones would be a natural fit for Japan, because Japan invented the cartoon, and the Ramones, especially in Rock 'N' Roll High School, are very cartoonish. So it'd be a perfect group for them.