Actress Was Quotes & Sayings

When I was a little girl, I used to walk around with a towel on my head, pretending I was a nun. And then one day my mother said, 'Why don't you just become an actress, and then you can pretend you're a nun.' — Olivia Hussey

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. — Tanith Lee

I wasn't, like, this top model; I was quietly doing my work, and when I became an actress, people started doing research, and everybody found out. People dug out photos, and suddenly people became interested - but no one was interested in my photos when I was a model. — Olga Kurylenko

I had a Saturday job in a chemist. The pay was something ridiculous like £2 an hour - it was slave labour - and I spent all day cleaning shelves. On my first day an actress from Eldorado, which was on telly at the time, came in and said, 'Can I have some Replense please?' I didn't know what it was, so I had to ask her and she had to say, 'It's vaginal moisturiser,' in front of a massive queue of people. After one day I was like, 'I don't want to do this job any more, it's just boring.' — Konnie Huq

Imagine if I'd said, 'I have to be the best actress - I want that and nothing else.' I never would have directed. I never would have produced. I never would have done a beauty line. I would have just worried about getting a job or been frustrated that I wasn't getting the job that I wanted. I was ready to be a businesswoman. — Salma Hayek

It was considered that you were stepping down by doing television. I almost turned Cybill down because I so wanted to remain a theater actress. — Christine Baranski

I was working with a great actress - a superior artist in every way - and she really liked Celine Dion. I tried very hard, but I couldn't understand it. I just can't listen to Celine Dion! So I guess music is a deal breaker. — John Cusack

I was out dancing with one actress or another. And that got press. Even when it didn't, the whole town knew I was a dancing fool, and since I couldn't very well dance with a man, they saw me dancing with a lady, and they assumed the rest. — Cesar Romero

I didn't think I was going to be an actress. Everybody in my family was in films, and they succeeded so much, I thought, 'It's better for me to do something else,' and they agreed. — Isabella Rossellini

I loved Cookie [Mueller]. She was a much better writer than actress. She shouldn't have stuck with me in the beginning; she should have immediately become a writer. She would have had more of a chance. — John Waters

She didn't look like any motel manager I had ever seen. More likely an actress who hadn't quite made the grade down south, or a very successful amateur tart on the verge of turning pro. Whatever her business was, there had to be sex in it. She was as full of sex as a grape is full of juice, and so young that it hadn't begun to sour. — Ross Macdonald

His own life was no longer a single story but part of a mural, which was a falling together of accomplices. Patrick saw a wondrous night web-all of these fragments of a human order, something ungoverned by the family he was born into or the headlines of the day. A nun on a bridge, a dare-devil who was unable to sleep without drink, a boy watching a fire from his bed at night,an actress who ran away with a millionaire- the detritus and chaos of the age was realigned. — Michael Ondaatje

I'll make phone calls. I'll call anybody and knock on any door to try and get a location, or get an actor, or get an actress. But no, it was just very easy. We just hit the ground running. — Pierce Brosnan

Since it was too difficult to get into the Screen Actor's Guild in New York, I moved to Miami in 1982 and started a successful career as a television commercial actress, obtaining my SAG card there. — Donna Rice

I had never dreamt I'd become an actress. It was destiny that put me in the right place at the right time and gave me the right opportunities. — Madhuri Dixit

[Roger] Vadim became famous worldwide as a director, and I as an actress, but the other side of the coin was terrible. My life was totally turned upside down. I was followed, spied upon, adored, insulted. My private life became public. — Brigitte Bardot

I was a professional ballerina. After becoming an actress, I did a lot of theater, which included musical theater. The first musical play I did was Murray Schisgal's 'The Pushcart Peddlers.' — Juliet Landau

You see, she was gonna be an actress and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, and I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, taking tips, and getting stoned. I go flying so high, when I'm stoned. — Harry Chapin

My whole life, when I was growing up, not one race has ever accepted me, ... So I never felt connected or attached to any race specifically. I had a very American upbringing, I feel American, and I don't speak Spanish. So, to say that I'm a Latin actress, OK, but it's not fitting; it would be insincere. — Jessica Alba

I remember when I was little, much younger than I was when I started modeling, people always said, 'Oh, you should be a model.' But I didn't like people telling me what to do ... But I didn't plan to transform into an actress, either. It just happened. — Tao Okamoto

As an aspiring actress, having casual one-nighters, doing drugs and travelling to foreign locales at the drop of a dime was simply part of the landscape. One which Charm wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embraced. Peaches was far too familiar with Charm's wild escapade's to do more than raise an eyebrow to her casual gutter talk. One story had involved two Egyptian police officers, half a pound of weed, and if there were such a thing, one of the minor pyramids. — Tirumalai S. Srivatsan

My dad was a very funny man - he's the one who taught me life would be awfully hard without humor! I'm sure his Irish wit in some way influenced my decision to become an actress. — Joan Cusack

When I was 8 years old, I knew what I was going to be - an actress. — Hattie McDaniel

Lately I did a film called All I Want for Christmas and it was well received. This gave me a new point of view and a new respect for my work as an actress. — Sarah Polley

Stanwyck was slim, and remained so over her career. Regardless of the obligations and pressures regarding size and shape for women in Hollywood, or her own needs and desires as an actress and a person, or the occasions within the films that show off her body, Stanwyck rarely advertises a superficial fantasy of feminine appearance. She is too busy exploring the subtlety of interactions. — Andrew Klevan

My parents are amazing, but when I was like, 'Well, I'm going to be an actress,' and they're all doctors, that wasn't the best and easiest thing to do. I'm sure that I probably went through a year period when I wasn't telling them exactly what I was doing. But that's going to evolve. — Reshma Shetty

My sister was an actress when I was a kid - she still is a successful stage actress in Sweden. — Joel Kinnaman

I got real acting experience, which I'd never had partly because I still wasn't so sure that I wanted to be an actress. But maybe it was something I could do without a high school diploma or accredited skills of any kind whatsoever - a job that would pay me enough of a wage to let me go out into the world and start what I would laughingly come to call my own actual life. — Carrie Fisher

Great lecturers seldom hesitate to use dramatic tricks to enshrine their precepts in the minds of their audiences, and at Yale perhaps Chauncey B. Tinker was the most noted. To read one of his lectures was like reading a monologue of the great actress Ruth Draper
you missed the main point. You missed the drop in his voice as he approached the death in Rome of the tubercular Keats; you missed the shaking tone in which he described the poet's agony for the absent Fanny with him his love had never been consummated; you missed the grim silence of the end. — Louis Auchincloss

First off let me say, I've wanted to be an actress since I was a little girl. — Paula Patton

I've never been a model, I was an actress for like a minute, but I've always been a writer. That's where I'm going to stay. — Karrine Steffans

When I was a kid, I was into psychological thrillers. When I was 12, my favorite movie was 'Thirteen.' I just really liked movies that showed an extreme range in acting. That's what made me want to become an actress. — Leven Rambin

I don't think I ever said, "I want to be an actress." But for Halloween, I dressed up as a movie star from when I was seven to when I was twelve. The costume was always a long dress, with makeup, and my hair curled, and jewelry on. And the movie star was always Jenny McCarthy. So right there you could see a little pattern. — Jenny McCarthy

I decided to be an actress, and the day after, I was an actress. That was quick and very scary at the same time. When 'Obscure Object of Desire' came out in France, I felt guilty for my friends at the National School who weren't in the movies. The whole thing was turmoil. — Carole Bouquet

When I got home I peered down at the lobster to see how he was doing. The inner plastic bag was sucked tight around him and clouded up. It looked like something out of an eighties made-for-TV movie, with some washed-up actress taking too many pills and trying to off herself with a Macy's bag. — Julie Powell

I wrote stories from the time I was a little girl, but I didn't want to be a writer. I wanted to be an actress. I didn't realize then that it's the same impulse. It's make-believe. It's performance. The only difference being that a writer can do it all alone. I was struck a few years ago when a friend of ours - an actress - was having dinner here with us and a couple of other writers. It suddenly occurred to me that she was the only person in the room who couldn't plan what she was going to do. She had to wait for someone to ask her, which is a strange way to live. — Joan Didion

The acting was first. As a teenager I was an actress; and then I came back as a singer. — Julie London

I do think that, at one time, being an actress was the equivalent almost of being a prostitute. It garnered roughly the same respect. That's changed a lot, thank goodness. — Michelle Pfeiffer

Why, when I was a child, I didn't say, as most children do, that I was going to become an actress. I felt that I was an actress and no one could have convinced me that I wasn't! — Antoinette Perry

My mother was an actress and my voice teacher, an incredible voice teacher. My biological father is an actor, and my stepfather, who raised me along with my mother, is a psychotherapist. I was always supported in creative ventures. — Laura Benanti

I was just a friendly thirty-four-year-old TV actress looking for a boyfriend who didn't have a neck tattoo. — Mindy Kaling

Well, Rhoda was, I think, the last actress that we saw. There had been so many wonderful actresses who were close, really close. But there was no magical epiphany. — Mary Tyler Moore

I desperately wanted to play the part of Darth Vader's mother - I think she ended up being played by a Scandinavian actress - because my son was completely crazy about 'Star Wars.' — Lindsay Duncan

I grew up in Manhattan and, since my father was a playwright, all I ever wanted to be was a stage actress. — Laura Linney

My mother, Evelyn, was an actress and singer, and my father, Jack, was an actor. My earliest recollection of my father is being taken to see him in a matinee. — David Cassidy

No, this was the career I wanted; a writer could be employed for as long as she could hold a pencil; for as long as her mind still held out. But an actress - even an actress like Mary - had a fleeting shelf life. — Melanie Benjamin

Because I'd done 30 plays or so at Oxford, I thought that I was an actress anyway because that's what I was doing! — Katherine Parkinson

I feel very protective of younger actresses, because it was so hard for me in the business. — Leslie Mann

I grew up in the Fifties, and the majority of people in my class had fathers living at home. I was very aware that I was in the minority. I had a foreign name, and my daddy didn't come and pick me up from school. I felt like an outsider, which probably helped me as an actress. — Cherie Lunghi

When I was 11, I moved to Los Angeles to live with my father and stepmother and my half brothers. I became really close to my stepmother, and I am still very close to my brothers. My stepmother is the actress Shirley Jones, who was in 'The Partridge Family' alongside me, so we worked together for years. — David Cassidy

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. — Natalie Zea

From the time I was very young, maybe five or six, I thought a lot about being an actress. I didn't tell my friends about my ambitions, though, especially when I got older, because I thought they would not receive them well. I never talked about what I wanted to do. — Louise Fletcher

People who weren't fans of the actress didn't understand that through much of the sixties, Doris Day played independent women, characters who owned their own businesses, ran households, and often didn't need a man. The irony was, she usually ended up with a pretty good one: Rock Hudson, James Garner, and Cary Grant, to name a few. — Diane Vallere

I'm sure my mum was a huge influence on my wanting to be an actress: just seeing her doing it, seeing her love it, caring about it. Invest in something, take it seriously and be so wonderful. — Hattie Morahan

I've never been a fearful person. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actress, a writer, and a musician and I never really processed that those are the three hardest jobs - I just never even processed it. — Krysten Ritter

Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would ... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's ... it was just luck really that she happened to the film. — Ben Affleck

Why did God have to make Mo'Nique a good actress? What was God thinking when he decided to give Mo'Nique acting chops. Now we have to endure Mo'Nique comedy specials. — Andy Kindler

The only thing that I could think of to do was to be an actress. — Sally Kirkland

'Sara' was the first film project I worked on as an actress; it's a short film. — Jessica Clark

I was in 'Jacques Brel' Off-Broadway for many years, so I've always been a singing actress, but the songwriting was a complete surprise. I had never written a song in my life. We were on the road with 'Jacques Brel' doing the national tour, and I picked up a guitar one day and I wrote a song. — Amanda McBroom

I may not have been wearing a mink coat, but I was traveling with a dog. That should have made you think I was an actress! — Bette Davis

When I was young, I was rather attractive, and I thought that I would be a leading lady. I always thought of myself as a dramatic actress, but of course the opportunities for blacks weren't there at the time. — Maidie Norman

But she had loved her philosopher so strongly that she had made him believe that her body was aroused and ecstatic. Ibn Rushd had been fooled. Men were easily deceived in such matters because they wanted to believe they had the power to arouse. She wanted to make him believe he pleased her. But the truth was that she could give physical pleasure to a man but not receive it, she could only imagine what such pleasure might be like, she could watch and learn, and offer up to her lover the outward signs of it, while trying to fool herself, as well as him, that yes, she was being pleasured too, which made her an actress, a phony, and a self-deceiving fool. — Salman Rushdie

I realised that since I was a child I wanted to be an actress just to dress up in big fabrics and corsets and have adventures riding horses with lots of blood and action! — Clemence Poesy

Mary [Tyler Moore] was absolutely brilliant ... She is a fabulous actress. She can do anything. — Gavin MacLeod

Because I never set out to be an actress, I always feel so lucky and grateful. There are so many people who are really desperate to be stars, and it was completely the opposite for me - I fell into it. — Sophia Myles

Playing good girls in the 30s was difficult, when the fad was to play bad girls. Actually I think playing bad girls is a bore; I have always had more luck with good girl roles because they require more from an actress. — Olivia De Havilland

I guess I was an early method actress. I would go to a quiet part of the sound stage with my mother. I wouldn't think of anything sad, I would just make my mind a blank. In a minute I could cry. — Shirley Temple

The other suicide had been the actress Clara Blandick, who, one day in 1962, had got her hair fixed up and had carefully done her makeup and put on a formal gown and then pulled a plastic bag over her head and smothered herself. She was chiefly remembered for having played Auntie Em in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. — Tim Powers

I've been doing my job for a long time and I never really thought about being an actress or being anything like that. I was always a bit scared as well because of the thing about models becoming an actress and all that. I just never really took it seriously. — Gisele Bundchen

I was hired to be an actress, not a personality for the press. — Grace Kelly

I didn't want to escape my life and become a big actress and live my dreams. That was never the way it was; it was just these amazing opportunities that happened. — Maisie Williams

I never did any sports at school. It wasn't until I moved to America, to New York, when I was about 20 that I actually thought that if I wanted to be an actress I might have to start working out. — Rebecca Mader

I really always felt that I was going to be an actress. I had a lot of confidence in the fact that I would do well from a very early age. I didn't know how tough the business is. — Susan Lucci

I wish [that when] I was 12 years old I'd been able to watch a video of my favourite actress explaining in such an intellectual, beautiful, poignant way the definition of feminism - I would have understood it and then earlier on in my life I would have proudly claimed that I was a feminist, because I would have understood what the word means. — Taylor Swift

My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead. — Nicole Kidman

I don't remember sitting down and saying, 'This is why I want to be - an actress.' I just knew. It was never a conscious decision or a revelation. — Joanne Whalley

I was a waitress years ago when I was first trying to become an actress, waiting tables in New York City. — Kim Dickens

I told everybody that I was going to be an actress in Hollywood one day. People looked at me like I was crazy. — Paula Garces

I announced to my mother one day when I was 8 that I wanted to be a serious actress. — Meredith Salenger

I play-acted and started performing, which just logically led to doing it in school, which led to studying it in college, which led to auditioning to the showcase in New York. And then I had an agent, and I was an actress. — Mamie Gummer

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. — Eleanor Mondale

We were the laughingstock of that first season ... It was with great relish several years later that I received a TV Guide award for favorite actress on television. — Roma Downey

I didn't have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it. — Lauryn Hill

I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive. — Viola Davis

I'm honest. If someone asks about my weight loss, I tell them I have five people working on me, plus there's Photoshop. I tell them I can't eat everything and look good. I was unhealthy when I was fat, and now I'm a normal body type. I'm not special; I'm just an actress, and boys and girls are intelligent enough to recognise that. — Sonam Kapoor

That glass sliver in the heart. Amid a fluttery-delicious Benzedrine rush, virtually every remark made to you is freighted with destiny, a sweet-painful stab in the heart. And Benzedrine and champagne, what a combination! The Blond Actress was only just discovering what everybody else in Hollywood knew. — Joyce Carol Oates

I'm self-centered, inconsiderate, and what was the third adjective? Oh, yes, and I have this infantile fantasy that one day I'll amount to something as an actress. — Jay Presson Allen

I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am. — Judy Holliday

[Winning an Oscar] was a beautiful thing that happened. It is in my house, and every time I look at, I see all the people who are a part of it, all the people who gave me opportunities to work, gave me opportunities to make a living at this thing [acting] that was a dream for me, growing up. And I got to do it, and then again and again and again, and make a living out of being an actress. — Penelope Cruz

Horror hostess, bondage goddess, Charles Addams cartoon comes to life, Vampire was every first-generation fanboy's wet dream. Scott Poole takes us on an unforgettable ride through the overlapping underworlds of B&D magazines, Hollywood noir, and early political liberation movements that inspired actress Maila Nurmi to challenge a postwar culture bent on stifling women's choices, bodies, and desires. This book is a subversive masterpiece. — Sheri Holman

I'd lose weight if I was an actress and had to play a role where you're supposed to be 40 lbs lighter, but weight has nothing to do with my career. Even when I was signing a contract, most of the industry knew if anyone ever dared say lose weight to me, they wouldn't be working with me. — Adele

My nana was an actress, my mom was an actress, and my sister, too. So because I was surrounded by it, it really came naturally. — Chris Pine

My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words. — Julianna Baggott

I had no desire to be a star. I wanted to be a character actress and be able to do all kinds of parts and work on a lot of things. That was my unconscious choice. I wanted to be an undercover actress. — Elizabeth Wilson

That's why I do what I do, and that's why I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old. If I can't effectively move people, then I would prefer not to do it. — Viola Davis

You dont grow up in a town of 700 thinking youre going to be an actress. I loved doing [school] plays, but it was just something to keep me busy. — Michelle Monaghan

I wanted to be an actress. In college I was a serious feminist and very political. I was determined to get one thing out of my career and that was respect. I didn't want money. I didn't care about fame. — Christine Lahti

I describe myself as someone who was always putting on a show, even when I was a little girl. I wanted to be an actress but I liked organizing everybody and putting on plays. I was a producer. — Laura Ziskin

He raped me, Agent Calhoun, he hit me but he didn't kill me. As long as I'm breathing,
I've got fight in me and luckily I'm breathing."
It was at that he whispered, "You aren't like a lot of women."
"Yes I am," I whispered back. "I'm like all women. You see this but inside there's
something else that I won't let you see or him see but it's the mess he left me. But that's
mine. No one gets to it. Everything you get and he gets is a show. One thing you learn really
quickly and really well when that kind of thing happens to you is to be a fucking great
actress. You don't have a choice in that because a man like that does something like that to
you, you lose having choices. The only choice you have is what role you intend to play. I
picked my role and that ... that Agent Calhoun is what you see. — Kristen Ashley