Quotes from Jacki Weaver

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

I know that Philadelphians hate New York actors passing off New York accents as Philadelphian when they are quite different.

I've always said about awards that they're meaningless until you win one, and then they're best thing in the world. The other thing about awards is that they engender respect from areas where it might never have come from without it.

Everything the Coen brothers do is brilliant.

A lioness has got a lot more power than the lion likes to think she has.

I think that's why we're always so fascinated with criminal stories because there but for the grace of God it could be us.

I've done a lot of plays before where I had to do a New York accent, but never a Philly one before. They do the rhotic 'r' - where you say the 'r' - where most New Yorkers don't.

I've had five weddings but if I'm really honest and if I count significant de factos... I've had nine husbands... which sounds appalling but when you consider I started at 18 and I'm 65 it's not so bad.

I live for my work, apart from my family who come first. And I live to tell stories and pretend to be other people, it's something I've been doing since I was 3 years old. Maybe it's because I'm intrinsically bored with myself, and I find other people more interesting.

I live for my work, apart from my family who come first. And I live to tell stories and pretend to be other people, it's something I've been doing since I was 3 years old. Maybe it's because I'm intrinsically bored with myself, and I find other people more interesting. The more different they are, the bigger the challenge.

I remember I was a little girl when Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher from America's Sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, and the reaction back then was enormous! And Angelina Jolie was in trouble, too, for taking a husband away from another America's Sweetheart. Don't take husbands from America's Sweethearts.

A lot of directors want to storyboard you, whereas the best way to get a performance out of an actor is a collaborative process where you listen to the actor's input.

Every director's so different. Everybody has their own modus operandi and I love getting to know different directors in the way they work. David O. Russell is very exciting to be with because he's got a mind like quicksilver.

They call David O. Russell the actor whisperer because he can get stuff out of actors that maybe some other directors can't.

'Promiscuous' implies that I'm not choosy. In fact I'm very choosy. I just happen to have had a lot of choices.

I'm under five feet; I'm very small, 4'11 1/2.

It's one of the functions of the theater to shock and titillate and appall, apart from entertain and delight.

When I was seven, I wanted to be Esther Williams. I was drummed out of Brownies because I snuck off to the cinema to watch an Esther Williams festival - my greatest wish if I get to Hollywood is to meet her.

The eyes are the windows of your soul, and when you're acting, they're one of your most important instruments. Especially for close-ups!

Well, I've been acting for 50 years now, professionally. I've been acting a lot longer. My mother reckons I was acting when I got out of the womb. But because I've been working in the theater, I've probably only done about 25 movies but I've done more than 100 plays.

Most Australians who've got an ear can do an American accent because we grow up listening to them on television and in movies.

I love gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, which is a big parade, a big march that thousands and thousands of people participate in. And there's one little group... well it's not little, it's got hundreds of people marching, and they're all very sweet, middle-aged and elderly people who are the parents of gay children who are out and proud.

No, I'm so well-known at home I think they think of me like a piece of comfortable furniture that's always been around that they're not going to throw out.

I'm a nice middle-class girl in real life, and I'm a mom and a grandma, and I usually play sweet characters.