Quotes

“A physical challenge is no less daunting than an emotional one and there were emotional challenges in River Wild.”

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“Acting is being susceptible to what is around you and it’s letting it all come in. Acting is a clearing away of everything except what you want and need — and it’s wonderful in that way — and when it’s right, you’re lost in the moment.”

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“Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.”

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“All an actor has is their blind faith that they are who they say they are today, in any scene.”

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“All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.”

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“America doesn’t reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances”.

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“But … in my own experience of male and female directors, people have a much, much harder time taking a direct command from a woman. It`s somehow very difficult for people.”

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“Chris Cooper is one of my favorite actors in the world. I’ve seen him in most everything he’s done.”

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“Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth — don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”

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“Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me.”

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“Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I’m putting out in the world, is because of my children.”

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“Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.”

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“Expensive clothes are a waste of money.”

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“For me, clothes are kind of character; I don’t follow fashion or understand trends.”

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“Get a good education, know as much as you can about everything, and listen – and look at the world – you know – feelingly.”

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“Glenn (Close) is my friend so I know she`ll forgive me, Helen Mirren is an acting god, and no one has put a better performance on film than Judy Davis in “The Judy Garland Story”.

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“Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn’t be happy if I were home all the time.”

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“He`s energized and the greatest combination of the generous and the selfish that ever lived. He wants to be the greatest actor who ever was.” (on Dustin Hoffman)

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“How you first meet the public is how the industry sees you. You can’t argue with them. That’s their perception.”

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“I always feel like I can’t do it, that I can’t go through with a movie. But then I do go through with it after all.”

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“I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs. Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.”

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“I can’t stand most things that I see.”

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“I choose to work on things that put a positive energy out, because otherwise I don’t know why I am alive.”

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“I couldn’t care less about fashion. If I had taken any clothes home, they would have remained in my closet for the rest of their existence.”

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“I didn’t have any confidence in my beauty when I was young. I felt like a character actress, and I still do.”

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“I don’t know why I don’t watch a lot of movies; I can barely keep up with the things my friends are in. There isn’t enough time in life.”

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“I don’t like to be gone all weekend and at night too. Because for 20 years, I’ve had children who are in school.”

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“I get a trickling few scripts that I’m lucky enough that some of them are great. I don’t get loads of scripts.”

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“I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I`m more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know.”

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“I had it (smoking), it stinks.“

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“I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I’m honored to be that way for young actors.”

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“I have a holistic need to work and to have huge ties of love in my life. I can’t imagine eschewing one for the other.”

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“I have a very busy life, and not many people who have a career and four kids go out a lot to the movies.”

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“I have a very good life – I’m lucky enough not to be deprived.”

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“I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.”

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“I have four to five months, tops, per year to give to my acting work.”

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“I have to start out with nothing each time. And reinvent the wheel. It’s very, very hard.”

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“I like who I am now. Other people may not. I’m comfortable. I feel freer now. I don’t want growing older to matter to me.”

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“I love doing comedy, but people just don`t give me enough of a chance. It`s one of the reasons I enjoy The Manchurian Candidate (2004) so much. It`s because I actually get a chance to be funny.”

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“I loved being someone so certain. Because certainty is just so attractive in people. To me, it`s a completely bogus position – for me. Because, you know, I`m listening to every side. But it`s so nice not to have to listen to all the different sides.”

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“I mean, come on; when you have people writing these things, that you`re the greatest thing that ever ate scenery, you`re dead. You`re fucking dead. How can you even presume to begin a new character? It`s a killer”

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“I need to go where people are serious about acting.”

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“I really, really depend on the other actors for the confirmation of who I think I am,” she says. “And so it`s important to me to work with good people that are not worried about how they look. You know. Real actors. They`re your blood.”

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“I stopped picking these wild locations and my husband and I decided to stay in Los Angeles.”

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“I think I was wired for family. You know how they say people are wired for religion, or wired for this or that? I always knew I would like to, if I could find the right person, have a family. I can`t imagine living single.”

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“I think I`ve worked with everyone in the room! I have!” (accepting the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical 2007)

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“I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work.”

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“I think there is a kind of career path that demands a certain thing that not everybody wants to give.”

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“I think your self emerges more clearly over time.”

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“I thought it was really fun, you`ve got to understand, but I didn`t think it was a serious way to conduct your life. You know, I had a sense of mission. I was a true child of the `60s.” (on her view of acting back in college)

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“I try to life as ordinary a life as I can. You can`t get spoiled if you do your own ironing.”

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“I want to feel my life while I’m in it.”

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“I was just interested in making a human being as contradictory and messy as we all are.”

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“If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won’t even try.”

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“I’m a pain in the ass to all of the costume designers with whom I work because I have very strong feelings about the subject.”

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“I’m all over the place.“

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“I’m curious about other people. That’s the essence of my acting. I’m interested in what it would be like to be you.”

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“I’m never so sure as I was in my mid-20s.”

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“I’m not comfortable at all on the first day, or the second day. But then we go to the bar and everything gets straightened out.”

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“I’m older. There’s some sort of seniority. As a matter of fact, the seniority ebbs as you get older.”

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“I’m thrilled when I get nominated. I don’t count how many and I don’t remember how many I’ve had. I just know it’s a lot.”

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“In 1978: “I`m looking forward to bigger parts in the future, but I`m not doing soft-core scripts where the character emerges in half-light, half-dressed.”-

“Instant gratification is not soon enough.”

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“Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too.”

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“Interestingly, young people don’t come to you for advice. Especially the ones who are related to you.”

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“It does make me feel good when someone says, That was so wonderful, and I’ll remember it all my life.”

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“It is well that the earth is round that we do not see too far ahead.”

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“It takes more time than I care to give to my career. I have enormous responsibilities at home-I have four kids, and that’s a big job.”

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“It would be nice to have a woman President. I think half the Senate should be women, half of Parliament, half the ruling mullahs. But that will never happen, darling!”

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“It`s a lesson I learned in drama school: the teacher asks, how do you be the queen? And everybody says, `Oh it`s about posture and authority.` And they said, no, it`s about how the air in the room shifts when you walk in. And that`s everyone else`s work.”

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“It`s hard to negotiate the present landscape with a brain and a female body.” (On her struggles as an actress earlier in her career)

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“It’s been a long and really interesting journey with a lot of amazingly talented people.”

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“It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.”

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“Let`s face it, we were all once 3-year-olds who stood in the middle of the living room and everybody thought we were so adorable. Only some of us grow up and get paid for it.”

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“Meryl Streep Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.”

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“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials.”

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“My attitude is, Why not try this? So I go from thing to thing like any actor does, with my little bag, my dopp kit.”

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“My family really does come first. It always did and always will.”

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“My feeling about fears is, if you voice your fears, they may come true. I’m superstitious enough to believe that.”

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“My God, I was settling in for a long winter`s nap. I`ve been nominated, like 789 times, but it hasn`t been since the Mesozoic Era that I`ve actually won. (on winning a Golden Globe for Adaptation. (2002)) “

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“My husband hates to be written about in my movie stuff.”

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“My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.”

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“Nicolas Cage, I loved working with him.”

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“Obsession is an attractive thing. People who are really, really interested and good at one thing and smart are attractive, if they’re men.”

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“Oh boy, no matter how much you try to imagine what this is like, it`s just so incredibly thrilling right down your toes. (On winning the 1983 Best Actress Oscar for Sophie`s Choice (1982)).”

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“People say, When you have children, everything changes. But maybe things are awakened that were already there.”

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“Personality is immediately apparent, from birth, and I don’t think it really changes.”

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“Scripts leap out at you, the ones that are really ambitious.”

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“Show business has been really, really good to me because I can work and take a lot of time off, and I’m extremely undisciplined person.”

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“Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don’t think anything’s going to make a difference.”

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“Sometimes under-preparation is very good, because it instills fear and fear is galvanizing. It makes you break out of yourself. If you`re prepared, then you think you`re ready, and if you think you`re ready, then you`re not ready.”

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“Sometimes with my children, I remember exactly how I felt as the child in this situation, not just how it feels to be me.”

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“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other.”

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“The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.”

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“The more people that go to the movies, the better, and the more good vehicles for women.”

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“The more you are in this business, the more humbled by it you become.”

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“The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it’s a completely random process.”

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“The reason I chose the movies that I did was based on where they were being filmed.”

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“The work is the most fun; it seems illicit how much fun it is.”

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“The work will stand, no matter what.“

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“The younger group of women have wide opportunities right now to go through good material and get it made.”

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“There are improbable things suspended in space, like the earth.”

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“There are some days when even I think I`m overrated, but not today. (When accepting Emmy for _”Angels in America” (2003) (mini)_).”

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“There are wonderfully talented actresses. It’s a really rich field. There isn’t as rich a field of material.”

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“There’s no road map on how to raise a family: it’s always an enormous negotiation.”

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“We are who we’re going to be when we’re very old, and when we’re very old we are who we were when we were 8.”

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“You can’t get spoiled if you do your own ironing.”

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“You just have to keep on doing what you do. It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.”

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“You win an Oscar, it can double the audience that you had before.”

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“Your life matters, and sometimes children listen and the lessons go in.”

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