Quotes from Melissa Leo

More often, I'm asked to play somebody's mother, somebody's partner, somebody's wife.

That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it.

My mom was a '70s mom. She paved a road that no one had yet walked.

Supporting actors are the support. You can't make a building without support. You can't buy dinner without support.

I'm interested in what the fans think, in what would make them feel connected to the Wayward Pines they had grown to love. I had a lot of fun thinking about the first season.

I have some close friends I keep in touch with. I knit. I watch a little too much TV. I ski, if the weather's right for that. If I can find a group of buddies, I go rock climbing.

If I'm going to get an ice cream cone two or three times a week, then it's a pleasure. No guilt.

You ask me a question. I have a blank mind. You ask me a question, and the question is informed, and you're interested, and now my mind starts popping. That's what conversation is. That's what communicating is.

I am that lucky woman who has been living my life all my life. Anything can happen now. Anything. And it will be only whip cream and delightful things. Even in the conflict and the hardship.

Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor.

I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character.

An actor's life is fairly lonely.

Hire me for the next picture. I don't have to just play down-and-out trailer trash and mean, old, wicked, old nuns. I could play a princess or a queen. That's all I wanted to do. Because campaigning does go on. It's a part of selling the film.

As an actor, you live a little bit of a cloistered life. It's a lonely life. You oddly, strangely find yourself all alone, quite often, with a lot of time to think.

I can nap with hustle and bustle around me; I can nap quietly all by myself. It's something I've always been good at.

I got none. I mean, I have no religion. I like the quote unquote 'Virgin Mary,' but no Catholicism.

I rarely know too much about anything I'm getting involved in.

That's what acting is. You're not alone. It's reacting. That's what we do.

Docudrama is not really my game, but it's interesting to play real people; it's interesting to play 'real.'

I know that one of my difficulties as an actor is to try to do too much, from all those years ago when my acting took place live on a stage. It was just my shiny face there, so you've gotta be super careful how much over-expressing you're doing with your eyes and nose and so on.

To be a comic, you must reveal yourself in your most grotesque nudity. And it's only then, when the truth gets told, when the audience recognizes it somewhere in themselves, that they get that great medicine of laughter.

Being an actor on a movie set is like going to the playground at recess.

Wayward Pines, I tell you, is a strange place, and the entry is always the hardest part. I was just going along for the ride.