Debra Winger Quotes

I was shooting one day and it struck me that I was the age that Shirley MacLaine was when she played my mother. I had to sit down. I had to get a chair, okay? It was a weird moment.

People pay to see movies with women looking beautiful, but I think there will be a place for me to play women looking my own age.

I guess what I have to say is, "Don't do it." I don't recommend it, because, having said that, the people that should do it will do it anyway, despite the fact that I've said not to do it. Only the ones who've said, "Oh, she said not to do it," aren't going to do it, and they shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

It's not necessarily that having an affair you get something from the other person that you're not getting from your partner, it's that you created a situation for yourself in which you're unexpressed and so maybe you feel another person allows you to express yourself.

Most bad behavior comes from insecurity.

"Stand up against the wall!" That's what everybody gets offered, especially women. When women started appearing on TV again in something other than the girl or the mother role it was all, "Get up against the wall," or, "The skin underneath her fingernail would tell me that she," you know, forensic stuff. Oh, God gross. Now, they're hunting terrorists.

I think it's a great thing that women went out in droves to see Sex and the City movie. I think it's wonderful and I think women have always shown they're looking both to be entertained and challenged in a theatre. I don't think women are afraid of movies that make them think; make them feel sad. The movies that I've been associated with are not exactly Sex and the City but women are leading the way to the theatre on those. They used to call it a date movie where the girl gets to choose.

People who make lots of money at what they do should just shut up about it.

I want to start a trend of women as we really look. Some good things, some not so good. I am tired of looking at frozen faces.

Actors always want you to believe something else even though that's the truth and to do that well it's almost a dying art.

The older you get, the more you've done.

Just because we're on schedule is no reason to shoot bad acting. Someone once said to me, 'You're inconsiderate.' And I said, 'Inconsiderate? Bad acting is the ultimate inconsideration.' It's a collective slap to a million faces at the same time.

I was the all-American face. You name it, honey - American Dairy Milk, Metropolitan Life insurance, McDonald's, Burger King. The Face That Didn't Matter - that's what I called my face.

I always loved working as an actress, but I didn't understand why I couldn't just opt out of being famous. And then I realized you can, and I think I did. And eventually, I came to understand that you can do that and also keep working.

I hope to find the roles that are age appropriate but not yearning to be younger, or parenting ad nauseam.

I happen to be interested in watching a face age. I like faces of women aging so it makes me personally quite sad. That's a beautiful gift from God. If people don't want to see that anymore then I won't be in anymore movies.

I don't believe in careers. I believe in work. I'm not interested in some 'big picture that would be really good for me'.

Bad acting is the ultimate inconsideration.

Show me the story. I just want to tell a story that pulls me forward.

I tend to wear outfits that match the walls.

I think when it comes to Botox and surgery, actresses should do it or not do it, but be honest about their choices.

You've got the whole civil rights movements emanating from the south, you've got the music that came out of the south that is the core of our current music, so for me that thinking comes out of having Dukes of Hazzard thrown in your face: that the south is a bunch of twangy people that I can't understand. So this is, hopefully, part of the movement to restore the south to its proper and rightful place in our nation... which is huge and pervasive. It's not about Texas - I'm not saying Texas doesn't have it's own unique history - but the south has this at its core.

A good marriage is different to a happy marriage.

I remember the old joke, while women are deciding which schools the kids go to, where you're going to live, how the money's going to be spent, and where your health care is coming from, the men are out standing around the barbecue solving all the big world problems. So I think this is a well known fact and we're not breaking any new ground here.

I have a thing with the camera. The lens is unconditional. It doesn't judge you.

I used to love going on a junket and promoting a film when it was not a 24-hour news cycle, and when there weren't so many media outlets. You could actually talk about the film.

I became an actor because I couldn't not.

The sexiest thing in the world is to be totally naked with your wedding band on.

I've been acting all along. I understand that I haven't been in people's viewers, but acting has never not been a part of my life, just more time in between and less high-profile.

I started out in stand-up when I was 18, which is really masochistic, and I did it really till I started going in movies. I did it for about three years out in LA.

I am one of the happiest people I know. And that's a weird place to have arrived at from being a depressed Jewish kid.

It's no secret that I didn't love 'An Officer And A Gentleman' then, and I certainly don't love it now, so at least no one could accuse me of being inconsistent.

It's easier to change directions while you're still moving.

Never say never, but the thought of electively cutting oneself is beyond my grasp, and I also object to it politically. Denying the lines on our faces makes a comment about age and wisdom I don't care to make.

I just want to sleep, and eat, and learn about what's going on in the world.

In the early part of my life I carried the flame for fiery women: perky women who were not dumb.

Granted there are only seven stories in the universe. And I agree with that. But give me a great variation of those stories. And literate.

I was never afraid of failure after that because, I think, coming that close to death you get kissed. With the years, the actual experience of course fades, but the flavor of it doesn't. I just had a real sense of what choice do I have but to live fully?

I am lucky enough to be married to a guy who tells me I look beautiful every day.

I need my family to remind me in a loving and nice way to lighten up.

An actress in a film starts every day with an hour and a half in front of a mirror, with hair and make-up and costumes.

But I never worried about having a child in my 40s, which is unusual - normally, I'm the queen of worry.

I don't think it is worth trying to look 10 years younger through surgery.

It's such an amazing thing to be loved for who you are.

I just live in the truth and think that every moment counts.

It's inconceivable to some people that that wouldn't be the sexiest thing to do in the whole world: to be a movie star, and make money, and be pampered, and whatever.

I do not need a lot of money to be happy.

I started out in stand-up, so it's very satisfying to make people laugh, but it usually means at your own expense.