Angela Lansbury Quotes & Sayings

Clint Eastwood is an extraordinary director because he knows the value of a buck. He knows where it will show on the screen. — Angela Lansbury

The collaboration really begins once the rehearsal starts. This is when the actor takes his place, because he becomes the one who is going to bring the words of the author off the page. — Angela Lansbury

Everything I did actually helped to build the revenue, shall we say, of experience, which enabled me to play a variety of roles as I got older. — Angela Lansbury

Believe me, it jabs you. When you're on the side of buses and New York loves you, you love to go out there every night. It's like a race. Curtain opens, out you go, and New York is yours. — Angela Lansbury

I made about 56 movies, I think. Not that many. — Angela Lansbury

Psychologically, you learn the values that are inherent in the dialogue, and you learn to apply it to the way you read the lines. That's acting. You're not yourself saying those lines, you're somebody else. — Angela Lansbury

When I opened up in "Gaslight," for instance, playing that narky maid, that all came about from my experience and my training up to that point, and so nothing was wasted. — Angela Lansbury

I don't care whether it's a chance meeting or playing a role that you thought was totally wrong but you did it anyway. It will often turn out to be the thing that will lead you to the role which is sublime. — Angela Lansbury

I'm the bionic woman. I have a very strong constitution, and I take excruciatingly good care of myself. — Angela Lansbury

Unfortunately, because the theater is always a poor relation when it comes to making the nut, it's not easy to get the audience in to see a play, unless you have a name that is recognizable, that the audience wants to see and is prepared to pay the $125 to see. — Angela Lansbury

Mystery is something that appeals to most everybody. — Angela Lansbury

I've worked with the greatest actors, and they're all gone. This is what's so desperate to me. — Angela Lansbury

I can't say that I pursued a career. I really didn't, it just sort of happened. — Angela Lansbury

Well oddly enough, I liken the years at MGM, and I was there for about eight years, to doing stock, what we used to call repertory or stock, playing a whole bunch of different roles. — Angela Lansbury

I have heard Mr. Romney's speech's many times on television and the radio and I have even read his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness and I must say that out of all the gentleman running for the presidency Mr. Romney is, in my opinion, the best one to fit the bill. — Angela Lansbury

I haven't been back to London for 40 years to do a play, so to play Madame Arcati there, she would be tickled to death knowing that that was what I was doing. I hope she would. She was a wonderfully unique and very special, very darling woman. — Angela Lansbury

They're great devotees of Noel Coward in England, of course, he's a favorite son, and so to play Coward in London is such fun, and anyway, the role is such a crazy lady. I just love doing that. — Angela Lansbury

I usually arrive at the first rehearsal with a vague memory of most of it. But the real work happens in rehearsal, oddly enough, because what happens is that you match the words to the movement, and once you know where you're moving, then the words that accompany that movement become not locked into your mind and your brain and your whole body. — Angela Lansbury

I can't say that I deserve longlife; I don't. I've just been around long enough. They say, "My God, she's still here." — Angela Lansbury

Here I am, I still go on, you know, like the tides. — Angela Lansbury

All I knew how to do was to act. That's the only thing I had in my favor. That was the thing that propelled me forward. — Angela Lansbury

My memory about names and places now is dreadful. But lines, I can remember. — Angela Lansbury

I played the Piccadilly Theater with "Gypsy" and also the Old Vic, and I've done other shows in London, but not for 40 years. — Angela Lansbury

Better to be busy than to be busy worrying. — Angela Lansbury

I just went along for the ride. It was a God-given gift. It is. So you can't say well, you wasted your life because you spent all of it acting, but I think gosh, I've never been to China, I've never been to Japan. I've never been to Yellowstone Park. — Angela Lansbury

I very seldom said no, and I was aided and abetted by my husband, who realized that the one thing I could do was to be a very good actress, by his note. — Angela Lansbury

Actually the years when I was playing totally un - well, they were just roles that just went by the board, you wouldn't want to know. But anyway, I'm glad I had that chance to build my craft. — Angela Lansbury

As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet. — Angela Lansbury

Because lifestyles are changing constantly the rules of etiquette are changing too
a little slower than lifestyles perhaps, but still changing. — Angela Lansbury

I don't think about going back to the theater. — Angela Lansbury

I honestly feel that "Murder, She Wrote" stands alone, as many of the other great shows of the past 35, 40 years do. It stands alone, and it's still on. It's still all over the world, "Murder, She Wrote," Jessica Fletcher and "Murder, She Wrote." — Angela Lansbury

I never regretted what I turned down. — Angela Lansbury

I had no idea that such a thing could happen. It never occurred to me.My son told me. He called me and said, "Darling, I just wanted you to know that you have been chosen to receive an honorary Academy Award." I was in the back of this car, and I said, "Oh," and burst into tears, of course, because it was so unexpected and quite wonderful. I thought it's been worth hanging around all these years. — Angela Lansbury

A sitcom. I hate that word. — Angela Lansbury

You learn a great deal that you can feed into your craft which gives you the experience that you actually need later on, when you start to get the really great roles. You've played that part to a certain degree in that picture, and you played that one in that, and so on. You add it all up, and you have that experience. — Angela Lansbury

You learn the values that are inherent in the scene that the writer has written. You learn about who you as a character are in relation to those others who are working with you within that scene. — Angela Lansbury

We all have levels of performance. — Angela Lansbury

I started in London, as a kid. My mother knew I had sort of an inbred talent. She was an actress, so I inherited it from her. But I think I got a lot of it from my grandfather, who was a great politician. — Angela Lansbury

I really wanted to go back to the theater, the live theater. That was the thing I had never had a chance to do, even though I had trained to be a stage actress. — Angela Lansbury

The Manchurian Candidate was the most important movie I was in, let's face it. — Angela Lansbury

I honestly consider that the greatest gift to me, is the reaction that I get from my work. That is a given which I never, ever take for granted. But to be given that by audiences, individuals, on the street, in the theater, is an extraordinary feeling. — Angela Lansbury

I'm Angie to everybody, you've got to learn. — Angela Lansbury

I was put under contract. A major studio. I got nominated for an Academy Award. Isn't that ridiculous? I mean, at the age of 18! — Angela Lansbury

It's better not to try to learn all the lines by rote. It's a very bad idea, in fact. You have to do it by using the process, and as I say, the process is to learn during rehearsals, and that's how you'll do it. — Angela Lansbury

I'm not going to be dancing with the stars at this stage in my life. But I want to dance and bop around, and I did, and I can. — Angela Lansbury

I think of myself as a journeyman actress. I will attempt almost anything that I think that I can bring off. It could be almost anything. — Angela Lansbury

The theater is magical and addictive. — Angela Lansbury

I have never directed. But I think I could. I have thought about it. I'm a bit long in the tooth to start. — Angela Lansbury

I'd been out of the movies for years, I had had a wonderful stage career, yes, in musicals and so on, but you don't really make any money in the theater. — Angela Lansbury

The purpose of etiquette is to provide an easy set of rules which we can follow when we are in a hurry and want to make sure that we do not give offense to anybody. — Angela Lansbury

You just have to be open and ready, and let it all happen. — Angela Lansbury

The thing I always say is that I wasn't going out reaching for roles, I wasn't fighting for roles - people came to me. They always came to me. — Angela Lansbury

Now the Gielgud Theater is a very famous old theater, because it was originally called the Globe, and the Globe is where my mother made her very first professional appearance in London, was at the Globe Theater. — Angela Lansbury