As an actor, you're just taking temperature. I am anyway, all the time, and responding appropriately. I was again cast very last-minute for Rushmore and met Wes Anderson, this quite physically and socially awkward man who didn't really talk to me much, a precocious and intelligent young boy. And Bill Murray. And we were sort of left in this bizarre hotel together and taken to strange locations around Houston. That was quite an isolating experience.
Olivia WilliamsMy skin may have wrinkles but it's because I'm smiling so much. That might sound like some terrible American greetings card, but I feel it's immoral for me to castigate my body for getting older, when it does everything I ask of it.
Olivia WilliamsWorking with Roman Polanski is funny. It's like anything in life - someone warns you that something's going to be amazing or difficult or awful, and you say, "I can do that. I can cope with that." And then when you're in the middle of it, it may be joyful or tricky, but it's never difficult in the way you think it's going to be difficult.
Olivia WilliamsI had the best teacher in the business. Kevin Costner was my teacher. I was acting opposite him and he was directing me. The way he directed me, for which I am eternally grateful, is he would watch the scene back on the monitor, which is sort of considered unfashionable - you're not meant to watch yourself. But he was like, "Come around. Watch this. See there, you're doing a great reaction, but you're doing it out of frame." That was exactly what I needed. I learned how to act on film from him.
Olivia WilliamsAs an actor, you're just taking temperature. I am anyway, all the time, and responding appropriately. I was again cast very last-minute for Rushmore and met Wes Anderson, this quite physically and socially awkward man who didn't really talk to me much, a precocious and intelligent young boy. And Bill Murray. And we were sort of left in this bizarre hotel together and taken to strange locations around Houston. That was quite an isolating experience.
Olivia WilliamsFamily holidays and weekends are really brightly colored memories, full of my mother and father, rather than our nannies and au pairs.
Olivia WilliamsI guess maybe I was hired to play in the Doll House because of my dinner scene in The Sixth Sense, which has been scrutinized a thousand times as to whether you know Bruce Willis is dead, or whether I'm talking to myself. I think that maybe if that could be my forte, to do a scene and be able to say it could be read this way or that way.
Olivia Williams