Laura Dern Quotes

It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents, so Wild at Heart was a wish come true. The first day we did a scene together I came down the stairs and my mom pointed that finger at me: "Don't you dare talk to that boy again!" You know, I've seen that finger for 23 years. And I started laughing, she started laughing, then the whole crew broke up - in that moment, they all knew that she and I had been there before.

I made a commitment to myself: that I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to do films that make a difference. Whether it makes someone laugh, or it has a moral to the story - it doesn't have to be an ethical film, but it has to move people. If it doesn't excite me, it's not worth doing - it's better to work on myself and my own life and wait until another great thing comes along.

I would say Steven Spielberg is family to me. He's a genius. We survived a hurricane together. I ran from half-puppet,half-nothing creatures. It was months of our life as family. It was the wildest film, Jurassic Park, I'd ever worked on that way.

Luckily, I was raised by people whod already seen all the yuck stuff, which is why they originally didnt want me to act. I understood the difference between getting a part at a Hollywood party and getting a job.

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly unless you have the right set of values and understand why you're doing it. Luckily, I was raised by people who'd already gotten to that point, and seen all the yuck stuff - which is probably why they originally didn't want me to act.

There are people on the ratings board and so froth who don't want certain scenes in the film. There are people who come up and say, "What graphic love scenes. I think, How can a love scene be graphic? Have you seen Total Recall? In this R-rated movie you see a man who you've seen being in love with and sleeping with this fabulous woman shoot her right through the head. "Consider this a divorce" is supposed to be the funniest line in the movie.

I don't care, but I don't get bitter about anything as long as I can work and do the things I love. And it would be a beautiful world if those things I love and that mean something could remain as they are.

It's very easy to get caught up in - there's a hype going on now that I haven't seen in years, and it's actually more about press than it is about an actor's work or what films they've been in.

Whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you've never felt comfortable with, or never knew about

I really don't consider myself to be a conventional Hollywood star. I've never really been marketed by the big studios to do mass market box office films.

When you're playing someone who has a strong ego about themselves, you can't play them when you have the opposite opinion of the one they have of themselves.

There's always a side of a woman that likes a man from the other side of the tracks

Private boarding schools and Catholic schools on the East Coast are something. Choate really ruined my father's life. He's had nightmares about Choate every since he went there. Treat Williams, who's a good friend, went to Kent School, in Connecticut. The stories I've heard about those places - didn't you have one nun who was just the worst nightmare?

I'm friends with Renny Harlan, who directed Die Hard 2, and I will say, I thought it was beautifully done. What I loved about it was that the bad guys are basically American political figures. They don't have East German accents or whatever.

It sounds like a cliché, but mother is really one of my closest friends, and so's my dad. He and I weren't very close when I was younger, but now we're best friends.

I don't turn my nose up at anything. If it's a great part, it's a great part. I'd love to do a box-office hit.

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.

As someone who has been asked to ask David Lynch what his movies mean for 25 years, I'm very careful about asking artists what their art means.

Nick Сage and I can't make love in movie? That's scary. And our hero? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Using a body as a shield against bullets? Hey - the world's a big place, and people get away with what they get away with, but to attack David Lynch for doing things I've seen in many movies, that's weird.

The only thing that I can personally turn to is compassion, gentleness, a willingness to allow myself to be angry instead of like why am I so angry. It's so embarrassing. I've got to let this go. I'm not going to be a good person if I walk around angry like this.

I went to a Catholic school. The private school was good - the teachers wanted all of us to have the freedom to think for ourselves. The education was good at the Catholic school, but you only got that one ideology.

I'd never done nudity in a movie; I've never sort of condoned it for myself, but David Lynch wanted it, and I was completely comfortable with it because that love story was so protected. There's never a moment where you feel anything is exploited.

It's really fun to act like a bimbo. But it's fun to act like a bimbo only when people know that you really aren't one.

In Smooth Talk it was a much more intuitive search - I was only 17 at the time, and I wasn't aware, as women are when they get a little older, that there's always a side of a woman that likes a man from the other side of the tracks. We all have an attraction to what's different from us.

When I started dating I had relationships with people who came from families that weren't at all artistic or whatever, and they didn't understand how to communicate. I find that so boring.

My mother opened a bank account for me when I made $60 on my first day of work as an extra. She's that kind of mother.

I do think my mother was a bit overprotective, not in any sordid way, but just normally. She certainly might say to me, "You know, Laura, I don't have a good feeling about that guy. I don't know if I want you to go out with him."

I've always loved film more than theater, and film may be more closely related to making a record because you have that ability to go in and do your work and have no judgment around it, and feel honest. Then, much later, it's presented to people. But in theater, people come backstage after a performance and you're about to do the same play again the next night, and people say, "Well, I didn't really believe that emotion" or whatever. It's really hard for me, I like to be closed up and just do the work.

There is so much in the world to care about.

I still have a lot to learn. I just have two cats, and when I'm in a bad mood - you know, it would be very easy to throw a cat across a room.

I had a good understating about press: that it's the actor's responsibility to publicize his or her films, that the press can be fun, that it's not about hyping yourself into stardom or trying to sell yourself as a hot ticket. I think a lot of young actors now are getting caught up in that.

Even if you've gone through an average childhood, you have girlfriends who get pregnant and then have to choose whether or not to have a child. And this stuff certainly makes you think about what you're taking on. I certainly want to have children, but I could never do it until I felt I loved myself enough, and wanted to bring someone into the world because I had some kind of security.

There was a television show called The Innocents of Hollywood. Brooke Shields is a friend of mine and she saw one of the introductions to it, and she called me and said, "I think you better check this out." And on this show they talked about parents who'd ripped off their kids. One of them said, "My mother stole $300,000 from me as a child." Well, my mother opened a bank account for me when I made $60 on my first day of work as an extra. She's that kind of mother. But god knows what people will say when this movie comes out.

If my career were a hairstyle, it would be helmet-head.

I hope we can be consummate artists as women or revolutionaries, or whatever women want to be, and also have love, not only for ourselves but from a partner.

It's interesting to talk to my mom about her character in Wild at heart, because she sees her as a mother who's just trying to protect her baby from a bad boy. I think that's why it works so beautifully - she has conviction about what she's doing.

It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents

What I consider a good part for a woman and what some other Hollywood people think are good women's parts are very different. I don't' want to play the supportive girlfriend who has nine scenes and just loves that man, maybe cheats on him in one scene but will always be there, and I mean - give me a break. You'll be offered the "lead" in this new hot film with such-and-such A-list director, "a fabulous part" - a fabulous part? A fabulous part is a character with a soul, who starts here and goes to there, you know? There aren't many of those.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour

I love to rescue animals.... The pounds were so crowded they were putting animals down almost immediately. Seven thousand dogs were put to sleep.

I made a commitment to myself: that I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to do films that make a difference... It has to move people.

I'm interested in human nature. That's why I chose to become an actor. Whatever people are struggling with, the struggle is often where the drama is.

I think it's interesting that there's always a dark cloud hanging over my character, in every movie. Even in Fat Man and Little Boy, where it's a real dark cloud. In Mask, it's more the judgment of others, but it's still a threat.

I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.

You can hardly tell where the computer models finish and the real dinosaurs begin

People have forever been interested in twins.

When man decides he can control nature, he's in deep trouble

You can change. And you can be an agent of change.