We tend to love things that are left of center anyway.
People that want it to just be funny should not despair, because there is so much true crazy comedy coming up.
It just seemed like a lot of my work centered around England for a number of years.
I'd never studied film. I had movies that I loved and movie stars that I looked up to, but I really had not seen a lot of the great classic films that he felt like he wanted me to see before I took on such a huge role.
I wanted it to be a wonderful combination of being able to dance a little bit, not being especially good, but also playing a character who says the line, "I love to dance".
I think I did a couple of test commercials that didn't even make it on the air. That's how little I had really done. I knew almost nothing about the camera. In fact, I actually did know nothing about the camera.
I still try to do what I've always said I would do, which is say yes to the things that make my heart beat faster, particularly if there's something scary about it.
I love being in the business I'm in-I do love being a part of a group of people that work well together. I love it when there's a connection.
I have loved by far the majority of the people I've worked with and the experiences I've had.
Dancing in the strip club, Not the dancing, but the being naked was excruciatingly scary for me.
Ain't no money like music money, because music money don't stop.
You've never seen anything until you've seen David Mamet be an Edwardian lady. He always conveys what he means, but he's so... masculine.
You don't get to make Westerns every day.
Writing is essentially an internal process.
Will Forte is such a nice, extraordinarily creative human being. Utterly fearless.
Wii on Nintendo is amazing.
Whenever we start a new TV series, there's also a lot of question marks, and part of that is finding who you are.
When you spend three months of your life doing a movie, it's important to enjoy yourself.
When you read books, you kind of create that whole world in your mind, and you go on a journey with the author of that book. I think that's really a good thing.
When I was going through sad times, I'd watch 'Cheers' at the end of the day to make me feel better.
What a mother I am. I can't even make popcorn.
We're all very fond of a black box in our living room that works on diminishment of images, that spoons somebody up in a very limited way. It can be a reduction at its worst.
We tell our kids to try for what they want. We cheer them on. But at some point, we stop doing this for ourselves. We shouldn't be so quick to close doors.
We don't want to be reminded that life ends at some point, so they don't put older people on the screen.
Ultimately, there are only two emotions: love and fear. And pretty much anything else you want to name can be broken down into one of those.
There's something inside of me that just connects or doesn't connect with the project.
There's no strategy involved in my career decisions. I do whatever roles make my heart beat faster.
There's just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.
There's just a total boatload of crazy that goes with singing live for the first time when you're 60 years old.
There's a style to doing period pieces, and you can't do a Western without understanding 'My Darling Clementine.'
There's a grace about the South and a toughness about it, too.
There's a certain freedom that comes when people don't expect you to be sexy.
There's a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.
There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.
The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.
The accordion came from just having a desire to play music. Somehow, I have slowly taught myself.
That's my name. I know it's difficult, and it's not pretty, but it's my name.
Reading is how I became an actor because I didn't grow up in a house where there was an awareness of film or theater. I also grew up in a house full of teachers, so reading was big in our world.
Our culture loves movies and TV, which is wonderful, but there's something a little bit passive sometimes about watching, because you're looking at other people's imagination at work.
New York had this wild beat that anybody could dance to. It was very nurturing to young people.
My son, he has a film group, a bunch of film nerds that sit around and screen movies, and when they had Mary Steenburgen Night, the two movies they screened were 'Melvin And Howard' and 'Clifford.'
My mother was a gorgeous person with no vanity, but she was a really good soul.
My heritage, many generations back, is Dutch and it was fun to go where nobody asked me how to pronounce my name.
My family didn't have money to travel, so reading was how I knew about the world. It made me hungry to have more experiences than just what I could possibly experience in Arkansas.
My dad had a series of heart attacks when I was a little girl, and our world was shaped by these huge, traumatic events.
My agents and managers deserve a special Emmy award for scheduling.
Like most people, I have a dark side, but because of roles I played early on, people tend not to guess that.
Life is about surviving loss.
Let me put it this way. There is more to acting than just acting like somebody. I like to act in such a way that other people get some notion of what it's like to be somebody.
It's very easy to approach a character like that - a so-called strong woman who overcomes the odds - and give a one-note performance, playing that strength alone. Strength is only one thing a person has.
It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.
In my business, guys may age, but it's not even a question they're valued. But women my age are supposed to disappear.
If you're not growing, you're dying, and I'm not ready for that.
If you want to grow up and do what I do for a living - be an actress - my advice to you is read as much as you can.
If there's an addiction in the Clinton family, it's to problem solving.
I've never been able to write a movie script. I respect that skill so much, but it's not been the way my brain works.
I've had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote 'Sugar' and 'Honey' at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.
I've had a great time doing it - being able to say yes to a couple of amazing shows.
I've found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it's percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it.
I've done little things, including Botox, but it didn't feel right for me.
I'm real strong, and I'm also real feminine, and I don't find a struggle having those two things under one roof.
I'm not saying it's easy, and it's definitely harder for women. Because there is definitely a double standard about gorgeous older men, and it's different for older women.
I'm not a great horse person, but I love horses, and I love all of it. The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.
I'm kind of a laugh junkie. It's what I appreciate in life, because life is rich and sometimes it's hard, and I really, really love to laugh and gravitate towards people who make me laugh.
I'm a very musical person.
I'm a late bloomer.
I'm a chameleon when it comes to languages.
I'd already made the decision before I'd even read it-just because it was John Sayles. Then when I read it, the themes were actually themes that have been a big part of my life.
I wrote my first song when I was 54 years old.
I would say that the things that have really left a mark on me have more to do with my family and my children's lives rather than a film role.
I would like to think that in America, as time goes on, you gain freedom, not lose freedom.
I wish sometimes people wouldn't underestimate me. But it's a fleeting wish. It's not where I live.
I wasn't making any money, but I didn't feel unsuccessful because of that. You can do that in New York but not in Hollywood. In Hollywood, it is how much money you make.
I was this person with this weird last name from New York that no one had ever heard of. But my screen test I guess, according to him, was the best. So I got the part, which was incredible.
I was excited to turn 60.
I was a waitress for six years in New York. I actually got fascinated to see how fast and how good a waitress I could be. I was doing it, so I tried to do it as well as I could.
I wanted a relationship like the one my mother and father had. It wasn't perfect; they had to work on it. But there was an unbelievable mutual respect.
I want women, especially young women, to create a world where your success is not based on being young.
I used to think I was going to die wise, and now, the one wisdom I have is I know very little.
I think, as an actor, you're constantly confronted with your fear of sticking your neck out.
I think the secret to what Jim Henson did, ultimately, is that he understood how to cut through to the... I know this sounds corny... but the child inside of you.
I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.
I take the fact that films cost a lot of money very seriously, but once in a while to have somebody say, This is a big scene, take your time with it, is important. That's John Sayles.
I studied with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I was in the last class to study with him before he had his larynx removed, so I actually remember the sound of his voice. He was an incredible teacher.
I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.
I panic at parties. I don't like talking absolutely nothing and pretending, so I'm quite odd socially.
I love writing music.
I love to play horrible, evil, mean people.
I love to paint. And I have another profession - an interior design business.
I love dark chocolate, 70 percent and up.
I like being part of a team.
I learned so much about life and other human beings - then about myself.
I learned not to care what other people think.
I know this is kind of corny, but we thought about renewing our vows again because I think my mom would really love it if we did that in Arkansas, where I came from.
I know that's why I became an actress. In my dream world, I could get mad and scream and yell, and if somebody died, they got up again. In real life, I didn't dare try it.
I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.
I have never had any success in planning my life, really.
I have never been able to sing in the shower, much less in front of anybody.
I have hundreds of songs.
I had two wonderful teachers: Sanford Melsner and Fred Kareman.
I had a sense of mortality since I was a little girl, which has to do with my father, who nearly died eight times in my childhood. He had eight heart attacks.
I grew up believing in Santa Claus, and we still treat our house at Christmas with a huge reverence for that belief - even though our children are 19 through 23.
I got my SAG card on my first movie, 'Goin' South,' with Jack Nicholson in 1978.
