Quotes About Actress

I think I'm a better comedic actress than I am a dramatic actress, but everybody believes I'm this dramatic actress and I'll take it.

You have to understand being an actress, and being an African American actress of a certain hue, I think that you have to be bold with your choices. Even when you're not bold with your choices, have people see it as bold.

Becoming an actress takes a lot longer than being a star. I don't want to be a star. I want to be an actress. I want to build a career.

The good news for me is that I have an amazing team behind me, and they've been with me for 20 years now - almost 20 years. And they have seen me as an actress, not necessarily just a black actress. So I have been lucky enough for them to see me that way.

I was so frustrated with my whole life that I walked up this hilltop and screamed at the heavens. It was very dramatic - but then again, I am an actress - and I said, "Fine! I'll be a character actress! Just tell me what you want me to do!" I was so angry at the universe.

More than anything else, my mother wanted to be an actress - a famous actress - which in the 1950s was all about being young, sexy, and available. She was all that, and more. She had big blue eyes, alabaster skin, a heart-shaped face, a beautiful figure. She was just a knockout.

I wouldn't say that I was an actress. I tried to be an actress. I really didn't have the gift.

I've joked that I would have either become schizophrenic or an actress, but as an actress you can do both.

I think there is this thing where people are impressed - it gives you a leg up in the sense that people won't treat you like a run-of-the-mill actress. They'll assign "smart" to your word bank, your adjective bank.

I would say only be an actress if you genuinely feel the calling, because it's a tough profession.

I got to work with Jennifer Tilly, she was amazing. Such, such a smart actress.

Well, it is quite daunting, but I made my first appearance on the stage when I was nine, because I went to a theatrical school, because I wanted to be an actress since I was eight.

When you're playing the devil, you're playing the ultimate evil. There are no boundaries. In doing a film in the horror genre or a psychological thriller, you're really pushed as an actress, you're pushed way outside of your comfort zone. Emotionally, mentally, and physically. That's when things really get fun.

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.

As an actress, it's part of your job to be able to imagine just about anything - even if it's not within your personal experience.

I'm not used to being asked what I want to talk about. That's why I'm an actress. Get told what to do, stand on the mark, say your words, wear this, look this way, look that way.

It's about getting the kids up and fed, getting one to school, getting the other down for a nap, going to the grocery store, picking one up from school, getting the other one down for another nap, cooking dinner... I live my life at these two extremes. I'm either a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time actress.

It has to be an actress like Marion Cotillard [in Allied] because there are so many levels to it. It's set in the Second World War, when lots of people were doing things that, outside of a war, you wouldn't do, like killing and dropping bombs. She's doing things that one wouldn't approve of, but it's war.

As a director, I get to have a much broader creative expression than as an actress.

I've always found as an actress that the best thing to do in film or TV or theater is just to lose yourself in it. Think of the story, the character, the worlds we're in, and forget everything else.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I'm always, like, just in it. It's like, 'Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I'm so happy.'

An actress always knows when she's hit it and mostly you haven't; but once or twice I think I hit it right, so maybe that's good enough for one life.

Before I read the script [The Following], I saw the schedule, and imagine how confusing that was. I thought it was intriguing. I'm an actress. Even if it's, by proxy, all about me, I'm all for it. It was all about me, but I didn't have to show up, so it was great.

I find it irresponsible to go, 'She's an actress, what does she know?' That means if you're a dentist, what do you know? If you're a lawyer, what do you know? It's our profession, it's what we do. It's not who we are.

Jodie Foster did it, Natalie Portman did it. I think it's entirely possible to juggle university with filming... I actually think going to university will make me a better actress. The experience of living like that, working to deadlines, living with other students. It's all the things I want. There are actresses who don't know about things like doing their own laundry and getting a bus. I'm not going to be like that. For me, this is just the beginning. I've only shown a little bit of what I can do. There is so much more to come.

I first wanted to be an actress after seeing a play - not a movie.

Ultimately, it's not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people's expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.

I quite like convincing the person the broom is their favourite actress. They are talking to a broom and they think it's Julia Roberts and they snog it. In Reading one guy took the broom into the wings and was getting amorous with it. I had a struggle to get it back. He was exhausted when he came out.

There is a neuron in your brain that will respond only to pictures of Jennifer Aniston - provided you have had prior visual exposure to the actress. That neuron does not respond to pictures of Bill Clinton or Halle Berry. Only Jennifer. I used the story to explain the almost ridiculous plasticity of the organ. There is no such thing as Jennifer Aniston in our evolutionary history - she was born in 1969, for heaven's sake - but we are flexible enough to devote an entire cell to her if we have previously encountered her in some fashion.

My father was a director, and he used to always tell me, "You should be an actress." When I was 17, he gave me a job so that I'd be in the union.

My daughter's wanted to be an actress since she was six years old, but I didn't want her to go through the same experiences as I did as a child actor.

Often, as a young actress, you find yourself being the only girl in a room full of men... and one of the reasons why I like 'Grey's Anatomy' is because they have such strong female characters and the women really drive this show.

Another thing that's pathetic is this rule that you have to look ugly to get respect as an actress. Jessica Lange had to make herself look really bad to prove that she had amazing talent.

I am an actress. I am not a movie star.

For example, the character of Claire in In Dreams wasn't imagined enough by me. Annette Bening is a great actress, and she gave a great performance, but because I hadn't fully written it essentially the character wasn't finished.

I was raised by an actress, and I watched all those women turn 60 and ask, "Should I get face work?" And my mother and Anne Bancroft said to each other, "We are who we are, and we're not going to fall into that."

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.

You know what's the worst part about being an actress? It's the pressure to look gorgeous all the time and to behave perfectly. But I'm not perfect, nobody is.

It's really sad looking at people like Lindsay Lohan. She's an amazing actress, but you see what happens when people know too much about your personal life. They start not being able to look at you the same way professionally. I don't want that to happen to me.

I don’t think I would ever have been able to be an actress had I not started at nine years old. I would have been the last person to stand up and say, ‘I’d like to star in the play.’

Its really good to have so distinctive a name as an actress. No one ever forgets it. My sister and brother are called Perdita and Rollo. Actually, my family calls me Hollyhocks.

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.

I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.

I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.

I did The Seagull, the Chekhov play, on Broadway, a couple of years ago, and I had done it in London, and I became completely obsessed with the character, Nina, that I played in that. She's an actress. I couldn't find a play after that, that I wanted to do, because I couldn't think of doing anything else. Every part is a disappointment, once you've done that part.

I like being put in embarrassing positions because it's the reason why I wanted to be an actress. I want to try different things and things that make me uncomfortable.

I realized through my personal travels how little I know about certain conflicts, because I was too vain or self-absorbed to ask the questions. That's been the focus while I'm in my thirties - to become an accomplished woman, rather than some actress.

I think if I hadn't had the dance background, it would have been much harder as a kid to be like, 'I'm going to be an actress.' But you're involved with one area of the arts and other things interest you. It feels like an easier move.