Quotes from Jennifer Jason Leigh

People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person - and that's just not me.

I just don't plan things. I live a month at a time.

One of the reasons that I do a lot of different kinds of pictures is because I learn a lot when I'm doing them.

'The Hateful Eight' is like theatre.

There's a lot of magic involved in movies that as a child I really appreciated. So I love bringing my son to set. It reminds me of what I loved doing as a child, and also, as an actor, you have a lot of down time.

I love Polaroids and I have a Polaroid camera collection from the '50s.

I loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself.

I love acting, but I am a mom, and the roles just weren't coming because of a mixture of things: because I'm not ambitious, and because I'm older, and I had a baby. I really felt like I had said a graceful and completely happy goodbye to acting in a significant way. And I had sort of made my peace with that.

I've always done roles that really appealed to me on a gut level and which I found inspiring.

I've always had so much admiration for my mom. She's so inspiring as a woman and as an artist.

I love being in therapy. It's just constantly fulfilling for me.

I'd love to have children, and I think marriage is great, I really do.

I'm a typical middle child. I'm the mediator. The one that makes everything OK, puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody's happy. It's hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.

People equate success with youth. And if you haven't had a certain amount of success by a certain time in your life, it's never going to happen. There's a fear about that. So people start lying about their age really young. I've never done that because I think it's so insignificant.

I like to investigate all different kinds of people, I guess, and find out what makes them who they are, and try to be honest in the portrayal, and truthful, and find out how to understand that person, how to communicate that person's experience.

For me, something dangerous would be playing thebabe in a huge studio film. That would be terrifying because I'dstink... I want to explore human beings on as deep a level as I can.

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.

I don't want to play the same person twice, that's not why I wanted to act.

I used to go to Haagen-Dazs and order three banana splits at a time!

I don't really watch my moves all that often; I mean, really, I don't.

On film, I'm very mysterious, but in life I'm very dull.

I think I live in this mythical world where doing the parts I do is not going to hurt me, and telling people my age is not going to hurt me. And it actually does. It's a bit sick-making but, you know, I can't change who I am.

I could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.

I loved being on the set with my stepfather. I loved the magic of movies. I went on the set of 'The Mod Squad' - I mean, can you imagine? Just walking into a living room and then walking behind the living room, and it's just flat. There's nothing I love more than being on a sound stage.