Quotes from Laura Dern

When you're playing someone who has a strong ego about themselves, you can't play them when you have the opposite opinion of the one they have of themselves.

As someone who has been asked to ask David Lynch what his movies mean for 25 years, I'm very careful about asking artists what their art means.

To stay true to your art is such a complicated journey, and Dad clearly has done it.

With 'Mask,' 'Smooth Talk' and 'Blue Velvet,' I loved the specific experiences so much. Each one was a specific filmmaker with a specific vision.

It's very easy to get caught up in - there's a hype going on now that I haven't seen in years, and it's actually more about press than it is about an actor's work or what films they've been in.

I left our home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend [Billy Bob Thorton] got married, and I've never heard from him again.

It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents

I really don't consider myself to be a conventional Hollywood star. I've never really been marketed by the big studios to do mass market box office films.

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.

Whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you've never felt comfortable with, or never knew about

When I started dating I had relationships with people who came from families that weren't at all artistic or whatever, and they didn't understand how to communicate. I find that so boring.

Having egregious divorces - where you just hate each other - is really the easy way out.

For people who feel things in an enormous way, it's pretty hard to live in this world.

My mother is extremely interested in everything esoteric.

You know someone is your favorite person when you've done a day of press, listened to yourself ad nauseam, listened to them tell every story, and when it ends, it's like, 'Are we going to eat something?'

Love means a lot to me, and I love loving, and I love boys.

Being an actress my whole life, it feels so good to have a clean face when I'm off, so I'm not a big makeup wearer.

You can hardly tell where the computer models finish and the real dinosaurs begin