Actress Quotes

Some people say I appeared on the Phil Donahue show to tell 'my' sex change story but I've never appeared on his show for any reason... not even as a member of the studio audience.

I'm always like, 'I can't believe I sound like my mother.' I remember running out of the house telling, 'Put your shoes on or you're going to get sick!' That's an old wives' tale, but it's like some weird mind control that I would be like that.

I went to my last three years of high school in New Jersey. I just wanted to act, you know?

I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress.

I've played Henry Fonda's mother so often that, whenever we run into each other, I call him 'son' and he calls me 'Ma', just to save time.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You're on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

Whether you're on TV or on the stage, you have to work hard to stay fresh, real, and full of energy. You can't settle back. You always have to stay on your toes.

Onstage or in films, you do affect peoples' lives, and sometimes that's very gratifying. But still, there's this little voice that says you should be doing something that matters.

Mostly, I spend my time being a mother to my two children, working in my organic garden, raising masses of sweet peas, being passionately involved in conservation, recycling and solar energy.

Maybe subconsciously I've kept activism separate from acting because it's important to me in a more profound way.

Just look at my face. Its an extraordinary experience. All of my friends who are grandparents have been saying, just wait, a bit cynically, but its just extraordinary. You feel like a child again yourself. Just walking on air.

It was in high school that I first became interested in acting. We put on lots of plays.

I've kept my sanity in this business by trying out for a role and then going home and trying to forget about it.

I've been very lucky. I wanted to be an actress, but I didn't really have the drive to sell myself. Fortunately I had a terrific agent in New York who kept me going from job to job.

I've always just adored music. It's my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can't do that if you're a musician.

I was raised in a time where children were still seen and not heard basically, so I think a lot of us in my generation went the other way and just tried to be as much more liberal and open and we're still paying for it.

I try to avoid a specific image. I seek to play as many different women as I can to avoid having a label put on me.

I think one of my very favorite films of all time was with Peter Sellers when he played Chauncey, the gardener. Being There.

I think I have a lot of crazy layers.

I loved doing Shakespeare. My two favorite roles, in fact, have been Viola in Twelfth Night and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I feel a little guilty only being an actor.

Actors are very generous.

Acting is really only part of my life. I'm addicted to it.

I feel that its our children who do give us hope because they are the ones who are going to save the world.

More flirtatious than me. I couldn't work it like she did.

It's kind of like Silence of the lambs meets Boogey Nights.

Comedy is so hard to do, so it was very cool to do dead pan humor.

I've been a vegetarian for so long, I forgot how much I missed meat. You know you don't realize how important meat is to you until you don't have it for long time.

If you've been told all your life that you're good-looking, people just flock around you and you never really have to try or have to learn an interesting craft, skill or hobby - or even have depth.

You know, let a few years go by until I hit my midlife crisis. Then that can be documented on film.