Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One of the most precious parts of acting is the work before you show up on the set, the time you spend being with your character before you bring that character to life. To me, that's the most rewarding part of it all. It feels very good to show up on a set just knowing that's with you.
When it was announced that I was going to be on 'Castle,' there were immediate messages on all the TV news sites from 'Firefly' fans hoping for a nod to the series - some encrypted business just for them! I can't promise that, but I can say that a few people out there might get a thrill.
I don't necessarily look for what I respond to in a script. I look for things that scare me, and take that as an indication that I should probably do it. I don't want to be bored. I look for challenges. I look for a variety of different things because it's so easy to go the cliche route.
You don't always realize the impact you have on people's lives. You just think 'I'm an actor, I don't think I'm doing anything particularly important in life' and then you suddenly realize that actually for a fleeting moment you do make a difference to somebody's life - it has an impact.
I went down for a week with the Houston Marshals. I didn't know that they hated paperwork as much as I hated it. They loathe it, man. They want to be in their cars catching the bad guys. They don't want to be filling out paperwork about the bad guys, you know, and the ones they've caught.
My mother would write letters when I was away at camp and say, 'There's an Ann-shaped space around the house. Nobody fills an Ann-shaped space except an Ann.' I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole.
New York, to me, even though I grew up here, there's something magical about it. I remember, every time I used to go to L.A. for work, when I'd come back and get off the plane and be driving towards the landscape of the city, I'd be beside myself with joy. It doesn't matter how many times!
It's a challenge getting rid of an accent by yourself. I have parents that have such thick accents. They are like, "She sounds fine." They didn't know. To them, I spoke perfect English because their accents were so heavy. I don't even want to know what I sounded like. I don't want to know!
I usually eat six times a day, small meals. For breakfast, an egg and a corn tortilla, salsa and cilantro, and some ham. For snacks, I'll have an apple, some string cheese, a yogurt. For lunch I'll have salad with protein in it and for dinner usually steamed vegetables and chicken or fish.
You can get too heavy on the masculine side of things with all of the action, but then we've got a really nice balance going on when you go home and look at the wives' story lines and what's going on on the home front. I think people really respond to that balance of masculine and feminine.
Work used to be the No. 1 important thing to me. Everything revolved around it, and to have a new perspective and have something else, my family, not just being a mom but being a part of an incredible family of my own, it makes me have a different perspective on life that I think is richer.
I'll wear little dresses for a look and then it'll become only shorts for a while or only t-shirts for a while. So I go through different phases but I combine different things. I don't like things that draw too much attention. It's usually just things that complement me and aren't too loud.
Being an actor can be a cruel experience because there is no cooling-down period. You can be involved in something that's incredibly intense, but then it's a wrap and you've finished and you go home. I find it difficult to complete a job and then return to reality and find my healthy place.
I did films with Wanda Ventham, Benedict’s mother, and we lived in the same area, in Kensington. So I’d be out with my pram and Wanda and I would be talking and there was poor little Benedict, who I suppose was about four, standing there while we were gossiping in the high street for hours!
I remember the first time my friend Colin Lewis, who used to be a judge with me on a show on MuchMusic called 'disBAND,' told me, 'I think I just found your next favorite artist to adore.' He sent me The Weeknd, and he was completely spot on. The Weeknd is literally on every playlist I have.
One of the first memories I have was watching Whoopi Goldberg perform her one-woman show on Broadway on HBO. She moved seamlessly through an array of spirited and soul-stirring characters, each one holding a mirror up to me and allowing me in many ways to see a reflection of myself on screen.
When I was auditioning, I didn't know it was 'Daredevil.' Everything was secret. They're secret agents. They wouldn't give you any clues. I was a big fan of the show, and I think it helped me, once I got the part, to really understand the world that they live in. It helped me during shooting.
Every project you're involved in and any character that you're invested in ... you learn a message from that experience. I know that sounds a little cheesy, but it's true. Its kind of funny the parallel that I drew from that, you kind of learn something and you get to apply it to the next thing.
The first person I ever really got starstruck over was Nicole Kidman, because I looked up to her. When I was younger, I wouldn't get parts because of how tall I was. I had the body of a 15-year-old but the face of a 12-year-old. I always looked at Nicole Kidman and thought, "Oh well, she works."
The first person I ever really got starstruck over was Nicole Kidman, because I looked up to her. When I was younger, I wouldn't get parts because of how tall I was. I had the body of a 15-year-old but the face of a 12-year-old. I always looked at Nicole Kidman and thought, 'Oh well, she works.'
If I look at the one thorn that is in my side, of all my life, it is my weight. I fret about it, I'm anxious about it, being an actor on television - it drives me insane. It just seems to be something that plays a central part in waking up in the morning and thinking, 'How am I with myself today?'
Elektra met Matt, and she fell in love with him. And I think he brought some good out of her at some point in her life, and maybe she wants to figure out, by coming back to him, who she really is. She comes back because she misses him, and she's alone, and the only person she's ever loved is Matt.
Carrying my own show again is exactly what I want to do. I loved my experience on 'Less Than Perfect' so much and I would like something like that again. I love half hour - I feel like it's where my heart and soul is somehow. It's the perfect combination of fun and light and extremely challenging.
With Yale, my world got so big all of a sudden. At school, if you could dream it, someone would make it so that you could do it. It was magical. I had a lot going on, as you do when you're 17, and didn't necessarily capitalize on all of it, but it made me see possibility in a way that I hadn't before.
I went to Coachella once, and it was only to go see Leonard Cohen. I got in the car and sat through all the crazy traffic in L.A. to get there - instead of a two hour drive, it takes, like, six hours. Then I watched his set and turned around and left. I just so wanted to see him perform in the desert.
I have worked with a lot of really great women directors: Ana Kokkinos; Cate Shortland, who just recently directed a film called 'Lore;' another director, Rachel Perkins - she's an Aboriginal director, and I've worked with her three times now, and she gave me my first film role, actually, back in 1997.
I guess there's this mind shift that happens once you're on stage. I don't know, chemicals, something happens and you just... I just become completely in control of where I am. And it's all about trusting the people that you're on the stage with, listening... and it just falls into place really easily.
It's such an obedient way to be for a woman, to try to keep yourself in top shape, to follow all the rules and hope that will get you a measure of stability or happiness. That's part of the affluent suburban dream: to do everything perfectly in a long-winded way, to try to fulfill all the requirements.
This morning a terrible family tragedy has occurred, we are devastated to report that our beloved brother, son, and friend, Sawyer Sweeten, took his own life. He was weeks away from his 20th birthday. At this sensitive time, our family requests privacy and we beg of you to reach out to the ones you love.
My parents are amazing, but when I was like, “Well, I’m going to be an actress,” and they’re all doctors, that wasn’t the best and easiest thing to do, you know. So I’m sure that I probably went through a year period when I wasn’t telling them exactly what I was doing. But I think that’s going to evolve.
I had never thought of hosting, but a really good friend of mine said, 'This is the most empowered platform to speak to young people about the issues that you care about, which is why you're in this in the first place.' So I was like, 'Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense.' And so that's what I started doing.
Each year, millions of animals are euthanized at local shelters because of overpopulation. Almost half of the animals brought into these shelters are euthanized because suitable homes can't be found for them. Animal rescue, a cause close to my heart, can lead to the safety of millions of these lost souls.
'Clybourne Park' was my first job after the birth of my son, who was 11 weeks old when we started rehearsals. And while that was truly harder than anything I've ever done, I was grateful every day to be going to work on such an incredible play, with such a generous, intelligent, supportive group of people.
At the gym, I do full-body circuits with low weights and high repetitions, as well as four or five cardio intervals thrown into the mix. I put a lot of emphasis on core strength and flexibility training. I also do a lot of running in my free time. Anytime I can move my cardio outside in the sunshine, I do.
African-Americans are always forced to learn the other culture, but the other culture is not forced to learn ours. I went to acting school at Juilliard, and we learned Shakespeare and Shaw, but we never did the work of a single African-American playwright, not August Wilson or Ntozake Shange or Imir Baraka.
I was involved with MySpace and Facebook and everything at a very young age because it's so casual now, and I'm into texting, obviously. But I've never been involved in any type of chat room. My parents are pretty cautious about it and know all my passwords and know who my friends are and who I'm talking to.
Some of the writers definitely got inspired by some of the story lines, but we are evolving in the 'Daredevil' story. So when it comes to 'Elektra', they didn't follow one of her specific story lines, you know. They really tried to capture what comes through the comics, but there's not one specific storyline.
Behind my door at home, that's when I'm relaxed, and that's when I can allow the emotions or whatever - to feel just what I want to feel - so a lot of people don't know me in that respect. I need a bit of space, a bit of a place to come home to and not have to pretend or perform anymore, where I'm just myself.
The show [Shots Fired] is an autopsy of our criminal justice system, a space where the conversation surrounding the issues in our country is offering a seat at the table to all the voices to be heard, a murder mystery, and grassroots look at our own humanity as we move through the parts and pieces of the story.
I guess the reason that I'm a horror fan is that I think it gives people the opportunity to enjoy the feeling of being scared in a safe environment. I think that's why, for all of human history, we've been telling each other scary stories: because it exorcises something that we need to exorcise in a safe place.
I move countries every three or four years. I was born in London, and we lived in Canada. Then we lived in Saudi Arabia until the Gulf War broke out, when we were forced to leave. Then we hop-scotched for a while from Holland back to Canada back to Saudi Arabia. Then there was D-day, so we had to get out again.
I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all. I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment.
For me, when I have those moments of getting down on my body - let's say, for example, my stomach doesn't look my stomach before I had kids, just saying - that bums me out, so I really have to shift that negative into a positive and get really grateful for the fact that my body delivered me two amazing little girls.
All horses are different - sometimes they have a long neck - so you don't ride the same way on every horse. It depends on their body, and your body, but the object is to get down low so you're aerodynamic, so you call pull from the horse through the head. The best jockeys do that really well, and know how much to push.
Hot Lips changed a lot in eleven years. Initially, Margaret Houlihan behaved as though a man were the only thing that could complete her life, and she didn't see what richness her life contained. She gained a lot of self-esteem through the years, and she came to realize that what she did, what she offered, was valuable.
The Australian film industry is a small industry, so you have to really be flexible within working in different mediums. A lot of actors work in theater, film, and television, because there's not much opportunity in terms of employment there. So you do have to be resourceful and be able to flex your muscles artistically.
I wish that people would take the time to show people that they are important in their lives, either at work, or at home. Too many times people take others for granted, and I think that needs to change. People are so much nicer and willing to help you if you use those two little words that mean so much . . . 'Thank You!'
I love 'The Walking Dead,' 'Shameless,' and - this is going to sound really dorky - I'm obsessed with 'Dance Moms.' I love Abby Lee Miller. Honestly, if there's such a thing as past lives, I was definitely a dancer. Maybe if I ever get a big enough name, I can call Abby Lee Miller myself and ask her to be my private coach.
I find there's this weird anger thing: Someone will approach me at the bar and say, 'Hey, can I buy you a drink?' And I'll say, 'No, I'm okay.' And then all of a sudden, there's this male anger flip, where they go, 'Oh, you know what? I wasn't even gonna buy you a drink, 'cause you're not even that cute anyway,' and walk away.
Dad passed away in 2000, but he visits me all the time. He comes to me in different ways. So I have that connection with him, and that comforts me, to know that in time I can come back and still have that with my kids. It's not unfamiliar to me, that connection with the afterlife. I know it's real; I experience it all the time.