Susan Sarandon Quotes & Sayings

To become a lapsed Catholic, first go to a Catholic university. — Susan Sarandon

He has a very strong vision of what he wants. — Susan Sarandon

My intent is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are less readily heard - children and women at risk — Susan Sarandon

I think where you get into trouble - for instance the mixing of sex and violence - is when you're telling an audience that this horrible thing is enjoyable. The suffering just gets out of hand too much. It becomes pornographic. — Susan Sarandon

We've legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come. — Susan Sarandon

The thing that's bad about breasts is that you have to choose between having a mind and having breasts. It'd be nice if you could have both. — Susan Sarandon

I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself. — Susan Sarandon

I think you have to be ready to switch gears and go with the team as a director, as opposed to superimposing your own strict idea of the story. There are very few directors that can micromanage and still come out with something that's living and breathing on a page. Wes Anderson is one of those . — Susan Sarandon

New York is very user-friendly if you don't want to be in a car all the time. It can also provide you with surprises because it's so compressed - if you walk around, you just find things. — Susan Sarandon

There is no shortcut to grieving. — Susan Sarandon

It's important to just keep wanting whatever it is you want and fight for it, desperately. — Susan Sarandon

I'm happy to be considered desirable. I love it! — Susan Sarandon

I think you have to ask yourself, what is the point of the script? What is the script selling? Because all scripts are political, every story is political. It either challenges or reinforces some schism or stereotype. So what is the project going to say at the end of the day? What does it tell you about the world, or what does it challenge in terms of your world? — Susan Sarandon

Being a Catholic, I was drawn to the mystery of the Latin and the smoke and the mirrors and all of that. That part of my disposition definitely did lend itself to finding my way to the back door of some artistic pursuit. — Susan Sarandon

At the end of your life, you are going to want to know that you made some kind of difference. — Susan Sarandon

In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control. — Susan Sarandon

So I would hope they would develop some kind of habit that involves understanding that their life is so full they can afford to give in all kinds of ways to other people. I consider that to be baseline spirituality. — Susan Sarandon

I always had a problem with original sin; I always had a problem with the exclusivity of the church and a lot of the things that the nuns taught me. — Susan Sarandon

Everyone has a responsibility towards this larger family of man, but especially if you're privileged, that increases your responsibility. — Susan Sarandon

If sexuality means saying yes to life, then you should be able to remain sexual until the day you die. — Susan Sarandon

Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody. — Susan Sarandon

You just can never count on a formula, on a movie that you think is going to be a big hit, and that's why you do it. You have to choose each one for what you think you'll learn and the fun you'll have. And maybe the cool people that you work with or a character that you're going to be able to explore ... You just keep your fingers crossed. — Susan Sarandon

I just want my kids to love who they are, have happy lives and find something they want to do and make peace with that. Your job as a parent is to give your kids not only the instincts and talents to survive, but help them enjoy their lives." — Susan Sarandon

I was a voracious reader and the library fed my curiosity, imagination and my soul. I read by the shelf - biographies, fantasy - all and everything fed my dreams. Then as an adult whenever I would go on location the first thing we would do as a family is sign up at the closest library. Not only would we find books, but what was happening in that town, because the library is the head of the community. — Susan Sarandon

I've tried them all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. — Susan Sarandon

I wouldn't want to be 20 now. I know so much more, and I'm much more comfortable in my skin, saggy as it is When I hear young girls complaining about superficial things You're at the peak of your physical beauty right now! Just enjoy it and stop worrying about your thighs being too big If you're upset with how you look at 25, life's going to be tough — Susan Sarandon

I was told I had an overabundance of original sin. — Susan Sarandon

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us? — Susan Sarandon

When I tell people I'm a comedian they say, 'Oh, are you funny?' I say, 'No, it's not that kind of comedy.' — Susan Sarandon

Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta relax and concentrate. — Susan Sarandon

Children reinvent your world for you. — Susan Sarandon

Certainly, if more people were smoking instead of drinking, people don't get mean on weed, don't beat up their wives on weed, and don't drive crazy on weed. They just get hungry, don't go out of the house, or laugh a lot. I think it would make for a much more gentle world. — Susan Sarandon

I think sometimes what happens is that all of this feeling out of control manifests itself in trying to control your body; whether it's an eating disorder or talking about getting your nose fixed, as if that's going to be the solution to all the pressure. — Susan Sarandon

It helps me chill out and focus. — Susan Sarandon

To know that once you decide to look at life outside of the narrow limits of just your world and start to understand that you can make a difference in very simple ways - in volunteering and all the way up to bigger world problems. — Susan Sarandon

We were friends with Jonathan Demme. We were all down on the West Side of New York, and I think I met Kurt [Vonnegut] through Edith [Demme]. And then I was lucky to do Who Am I This Time? [1982], which was an adaptation of his short story that Jonathan Demme directed with Chris Walken and I, and that really cemented the friendship. — Susan Sarandon

It's a miracle when something actually turns out well because there are so many ways for it to go wrong. — Susan Sarandon

When you run into someone in NY it is usually a pleasant surprise. When you run into someone in LA you usually had a car accident. — Susan Sarandon

I hope they're present in their lives and feel some kind of empathy. I think a lot of the mistakes that have been made in the world have been through a lack of empathy. If you can identify with someone else and empathise with someone else, then activism is a short step away, she explained in an interview with Parade. — Susan Sarandon

There have been a few little films I'd done like that that the studio just decided not to do much with, films like Anywhere but Here [1999] or Jeff, Who Lives at Home [2012]. Thank God people find them later and love them. I'm always really drawn to people who have seen these strange little films. — Susan Sarandon

When I grew up in the church, we were praying because the Communists were going to come over and hang you upside down on a cross, and I so wanted to be a good person, and I had these rosary beads that I would sleep with every night, and I just wanted the blessed Virgin to be on my side. — Susan Sarandon

This is an amazing country, for all of its faults. My feeling is, dig in and let's try to change the world. Dissent is not only your right, it's your duty. — Susan Sarandon

I got married to Chris Sarandon, who was a graduate student, and he knew everything at that point, I thought, because he was older. He introduced me to poetry and black-and-white movies. — Susan Sarandon

I'm kind of a nerd, so whenever I get a chance to talk to an artist I really admire, I tend to gravitate to process. — Susan Sarandon

How you spend your energy is ultimately what creates who you are.
(On Beauty: Susan Sarandon, Vogue, January 8, 2016) — Susan Sarandon

I believe in using words, not fists. — Susan Sarandon

If Wes Anderson has a very strong cast, he can direct the minutia of that story and still manage to have something that lives and breathes. — Susan Sarandon

If you can just see all the children of the world as your own, all the mothers of the world as you are, we can make a huge difference. — Susan Sarandon

It gets to be 2 a.m., and they hand you a bottle of whipped cream and some syrup and things start getting silly. — Susan Sarandon

I think looking at your own life, on- and offscreen, you can motivate anything, or you can delude yourself into anything. — Susan Sarandon

I remember Anthony Perkins saying, "Real is not necessarily interesting." So real is not enough. But what happens as an actor is that you're really trained to listen and to be open and have empathy. It's such a natural consequence that you end up being more political. You can empathize with the mother whose kids are going to be sent to Iraq, or you can emphasize with the mother who is losing their child to a disease. How could you not then be active? So you're automatically drawn to that aspect in the rest of your life. — Susan Sarandon

It is a different world than when I was growing up, and you started to just kind of maintain at thirty-five and just hope you can hope it together. People are a lot more vital than I am and doing all kinds of things and leading really important movements. — Susan Sarandon

What I like about The Meddler style of movie is that it's a fairly lighthearted romantic comedy, but there are hidden moments where something happens that's unexpected, that hopefully have some kind of emotional resonance that you didn't see coming. I love when a film does that. — Susan Sarandon

When I got the script for Thelma & Louise, when I met with the director, Ridley Scott, I said, "I don't want to do a revenge film. I'm not interested in doing that moment in the script after they shoot the truck, where it says they jump up and down and they're real happy about it". — Susan Sarandon

Now, as I move through my fifties, I can be professional and domestic, creative and intellectual, patient and urgent. I have learned that we should never settle for someone else's definition of who we can be. Growing to this age, I realize, is kind of like feeling your voice deepen. It's still your voice, but it has more substance, and it sounds like it knows its own origins. — Susan Sarandon

Acting is kind of a forced compassion, where you learn that given certain circumstances, you can feel and do things that you never thought yourself capable of. And so it stops you from being super-judgmental. — Susan Sarandon

Sometimes what happens is that, when you micromanage actors and moments, it just doesn't quite live. — Susan Sarandon

I'd have conversations with the camera crew about what was going on in the scene, so that they were prepared to shoot it. I love the fact that when you work, you create this tribe. — Susan Sarandon

I think it's very hard to be naked in a scene and not be upstaged by your nipples. — Susan Sarandon

If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family. And that makes you at home in that world and not fearful. So really it's very self-serving. — Susan Sarandon

I don't like to plan. Very often, for me, acting is like loving; it's using the muscle that you use in loving, in that your heart feels open. Physically, you feel open. And so therefore your job is to enter, open, and listen. And see what happens. — Susan Sarandon

It never really worked for me to have long arguments about motivation. — Susan Sarandon

Sometimes when you have to go into something, unless you're gifted and can just turn it on and off like a jukebox, you find someplace where there's nothing going on to get yourself into whatever state your character is entering into. — Susan Sarandon

I'm a native New Yorker. Everything to do with New York feels like my family. — Susan Sarandon

The trouble with being an activist is you end up like Eve and you get kicked out of the Garden of Eden. You know, Eve was the first person who thought for herself. And she still gets a bad rap. I named my daughter after her. — Susan Sarandon

I hate the assumption that once you're committed to someone you stop treating each other like individuals. I like getting up knowing I am choosing to be with that person. — Susan Sarandon

Never root for a team whose uniforms have elastic stretch waistbands. — Susan Sarandon

Knowledge is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS. Yet millions of children are missing an education. Missing their teachers who have died of the disease. Missing from class as they stay home to care for their dying mothers and fathers. Children are missing your support. United for Children. Unite against AIDS. — Susan Sarandon

I've always had a really developed sense of justice. As a child, I would rotate my dolls' dresses for fear that they might come alive at midnight and one of them would always have the best dress on. Whatever it was that made me worry about my dolls I suppose has paid off in my career because, really, an actor is all about empathy and imagination. And those are the cornerstones of activism. — Susan Sarandon

I try to live my life every day in the present, and try not to turn a blind eye to injustice and need. — Susan Sarandon

One night I looked down and my rosary beads were glowing. And I realized that I did not want to see the blessed Virgin - I was terrified. — Susan Sarandon

You create this situation where you are so dependent on each other. That's especially true for film. In theater, the actor has much more say, much more control, for better or worse. — Susan Sarandon

You have to take away the idea that something you do is right or wrong. I don't think there's a right or a wrong; I think there's an "it works" or "it doesn't work" for the whole. And that's why you need a director you trust, so you can just keep throwing out suggestions. — Susan Sarandon

My aunt had given me these rosary beads that were glow-in-the-dark. So all of a sudden I look down and they're glowing, and I'm looking toward the door and thinking, "Oh, my God, I don't want anything to come though here. I'm not worthy, I'm not ready." I didn't want to be one of those kids who sees Our Lady of Fatima. — Susan Sarandon

Somebody can be the captain of the ship, which allows you to make big mistakes. — Susan Sarandon

Do you really have to be the ice-queen intellectual or the slut whore? Isn't there some way to be both? — Susan Sarandon

With the help of folks like you and me, Heifer International tackles the problem of hunger one family at a time with gifts of renewable resources - farm animals that are ongoing sources of food and income. — Susan Sarandon

I feel it's easier to sit in the backseat and go, "Oh, yeah, let's go there." You're not worried about getting to the destination. But the guy or the woman who has to get you to the destination is worried about a lot of other things, so my job as an actor is to try as many things as possible, be as open as possible, listen, and keep my heart open. — Susan Sarandon

So I think (Obama) definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for. — Susan Sarandon

I had school debt I had to pay off. Sometimes I would do commercials to get me through. And so I kept bumping along like that and learning different things. I knew I wanted to get out on my own. I was just super-curious, and I was a good listener. And that got me through. — Susan Sarandon

9/11 just seemed to come out of the blue. And there were people asking questions, but then there were no answers. At some point, it just turned into, "We've got to do what we've got to do." And I think those are the moments when you grow, when you get the opportunity to try to figure out, exactly as you said, what price are you paying, and if it's worth that price. — Susan Sarandon

In the U.S., they just want to know who you're sleeping with. — Susan Sarandon

It's really hard to find stuff that is original. You pick up scripts and in four pages you know where it's going and the same thing when you are sitting in a theatre, I just rejoice when something unfolds in a way that I'm not conducive ... — Susan Sarandon

The only thing I can talk about is just forgiving yourself, because I do not have everything together. And so I tell people: No, you should see my house, it's a mess. — Susan Sarandon

I hesitate to direct even though I feel I contribute a lot on a set. — Susan Sarandon

It's a very exciting time in the history of this country, to even see people responding to a different way of doing business and really wanting to make a change. — Susan Sarandon

Happiness is the true beauty weapon. — Susan Sarandon

We stand a chance of getting a president who has probably killed more people before he gets into office than any president in the history of the United States. — Susan Sarandon

With the most interesting directors, the cast comes together to make something magical that nobody counted on. — Susan Sarandon

When my children wake up in the morning they know they will eat breakfast, get hugs from their parents, go to a good, safe school. Plates are full and store windows are glittering. But at the same time the great majority of the world's children and women stand - no - shiver on the precipice — Susan Sarandon

Now, Tim has been really, really busy, and it's been my job now to kind of deal with everything. And trying to figure out how we balance that, logistically it's a nightmare. But these little jobs make it much easier. — Susan Sarandon

It's ridiculous that we continue to incarcerate anyone for using a substance that actually causes far less damage than alcohol. No one goes out looking for fights on marijuana. No one dies from marijuana intoxication. And no one should be jailed for possessing marijuana. — Susan Sarandon

Do you really expect me to say gravity hasn't taken its toll? No. But as I'm earning these lines [in my face], I'm making an aesthetic choice. — Susan Sarandon

It will be great when it's not such a big deal when a woman gets a good job. — Susan Sarandon

The directors I consider really great have the ability to recognize when something's going in an unexpected direction and see it as a bonus and be able to go with it, as opposed to locking down what they thought was going to happen. — Susan Sarandon

Ladies, stress shows on your face. Happiness is the true beauty weapon.
As quoted in The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets ( Kym Douglas / Cindy Pearlman, 2006) — Susan Sarandon

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you. — Susan Sarandon

As a mother trying to raise kids with some kind of a code, an honorable way to solve problems without using violence, I find it interesting to live in a country where your government is allowed to kill, whether it's war or execution. What interests me is not who deserves to die but who deserves to kill. — Susan Sarandon

It didn't seem to have relevance, except in Central America or South America, countries where the church was connected to the fight of the people for economic justice. That's why it was so interesting to find myself back with Sister Helen [in Dead Man Walking], this new breed of nuns who were making a difference in the community. — Susan Sarandon

Really, for me, it's important to know who's pitching and who's catching - just what that scene is supposed to accomplish in terms of storytelling. That being said, on the day, basically what you're trying to get yourself into an open place. And if the character is in a state of anxiety or vulnerability, you try to find some touchstone. — Susan Sarandon