Glenn Close Quotes

Because as an actor, I really feel you cannot judge a character. You have to totally commit to that character. And for me to totally commit to the character, I have to find those places where I understand the sequence of behavior.

It is an odd paradox that a society, which can now speak openly and unabashedly about topics that were once unspeakable, still remains largely silent when it comes to mental illness.

I love the chemistry that can be created onstage between the actors and the audience. It's molecular even, the energies that can go back and forth. I started in theater and when I first went into movies I felt that my energy was going to blow out the camera.

What's so fascinating about people is what they don't show. People are masters at it; usually actors show too much.

We were fortunate enough to have several good books detailing the camps and the women. Some were by the survivors. I also got to talk to some of the women who had been in the camp, survivors.

I love Ron Howard, he's a wonderful director, incredibly prepared. But I have to criticize my performance in that movie. It all took place in one day. My character was having a bad day, so she's having a bad day throughout the whole movie. But this was a comedy, and I think I was too serious, too dense. Yes, I think that describes my failure there.

I never got into this business thinking I'd be like a movie star.

The best thing I have is the knife from Fatal Attraction. I hung it in my kitchen. It's my way of saying, Don't mess with me.

I'm an actor, that's my contribution.

I love histories. I love learning. I love books that talk about people who made a real impact on history, because it always has to do with who they were at that time and what their personalities were like and what their strengths and weaknesses were.

I had a great time on The Shield. From working on it I have a totally different view of law enforcement.

A huge part of real love is constant forgiveness.

Robin [Williams] was a world treasure. As we mourn his tragic death, we must remember him for the great waves of laughter that he was able to illicit from us, how his humor and insights - though they came from a place of pain and uncertainty - connected us and reminded us of how flawed and fragile...how human we are. How we are capable of moments of inspired transcendence and others of unspeakable despair.

What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

Good roles are hard to find no matter what age.

Taking power away from a man is a dangerous thing. Someone always pays.

We have to be vulnerable as actors, but we have to protect ourselves.

It puts you in a kind of a strange situation where everybody is looking at every little thing you do.

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite.

And the writers are good in that it's easy to memorize, and good writing has an innate rhythm to it. And I've always felt that it's easier to get in your head than writing that has very kind of mind busting moments.

The word diva has a negative connotation.

I think there's something thrilling about going into a movie house and seeing everything on such a huge screen. I think we're in a culture now that is confronted with various sizes of screens, the biggest movie houses and then the smallest iPods.

And when you're with a great crew like we had, it becomes a thrilling, again, collaboration, which is to me one of the great aspects of the process that you go through. I find myself at this point in my career, getting potentially, incredibly bored if I stand around a lot, so that's why I really like the pace of television.

I am extremely shy. I am not happy in crowds of people.

I also have always felt that television has a huge potential for the kinds of audiences that some films would never dream or ever be able to have. So that potential is very exciting to me.

I don't think the tabloids find me very interesting.

I grew up with a house full of dogs. My mother was a great nature lover and taught us to have almost a religious sense of respect for the natural world.

I think there are certain actors that have that kind of energy about them, that taking over a room energy.

I've always felt that an independent film is a film that almost doesn't get made.

And those moments that I find mind busting. Meaning like there's a word that I find in a weird place. I love the process of going to the writer and working that out, because that's just basic communication.

Just play the moment, that's the fun of it. You just play the moment. It's great writing and very clever writing, I think it's witty. And I have those great clothes. You have a great, witty, intelligent script and you look like a million dollars, because we have a great costumer, and it's a pretty good place to begin.

It's not good to be in a situation where people don't want to direct you or don't want to question something.

So you have the challenge of just learning the lines, period, and not only learning them, but learning them to the extent that you assimilate them, so that you're not worried about what the next word is coming out of your mouth when it comes to doing a scene. And you're also in the trenches with the writers, just in the wonderful kind of back and forth of how is it best to say something, even if it involves four or five words. I love that kind of thing.

Celebrity is death - celebrity - that's the worst thing that can happen to an actor.

Ismail Merchant was just the most seductive, passionate, outrageous, driven, genius of a man.

So I'm always inspired by my fellow actors. And that's kind of a constant for me. I have huge respect for our profession and our craft. And I seek in my work to create connections, first for me with the character and then the character with the other actors, and then ultimately, all of us together connecting with the audience in a way that sometimes is subliminal, even.

I left the studio at 5:30 in the morning. It's an incredible mind exercise. You have to, obviously, have stamina, but you really feel like you're kind of feeding your mind. It's a challenge of learning lines very fast and then you have to be lose enough to hopefully make good choices in a much shorter amount of time that it takes to film certain scenes.

It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways.

Be aware of your inner voice and follow it, even though most of the time it will tell you the most uncomfortable path to choose.

I have the belief that truly evil people, it's a genetic evil. I only have the experience of exploring the landscape of some of the characters I've played that people have labeled as evil; I don't think they're evil.

I don't like public venues. I never know what to wear.

I'm not a natural ocean person. I married into a family of swimmers, and I've slowly been drawn into the sea.

I think Cruella is evil, because she's the devil. But all the other characters, I was able to find a common humanity with them somewhere, knowing where they're most fragile, where they're most vulnerable, knowing some of the things that happened to them that might have formed this kind of behavior.

The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

I've been sacrificing my life for my work for 30 years, and now I want it the other way around. I want to find work that fits into my life and that would be based here.

You have to love the characters you play, even if no one else does.

As far as the difference for me between television and movies, I really thrill to the pace of television. As exhausting as it can be - there was actually one day when we never went to bed.

I had a dresser who literally squeezed me in like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.