Quotes from Allison Janney

The pre-shoot days are so relaxed and fun and the writers are laughing. I love the rehearsal process.

Growing up, everybody told me I was good. I was playing ping-pong with my father, and he'd say, 'That's a good shot,' but I'd mess up the next one, and I'd yell, 'Don't tell me that! I'll mess up! Just don't say anything!' You know, if someone says, 'You can't do that,' then I'm going to be, 'Yeah, you watch me.'

I was a hard fit at a young age. I didn't make sense as an ingenue or a leading love-interest lady.

I spent a lot of time in the trenches in New York doing a lot of off-off-off Broadway theater.

The real trick to auditioning is just letting go of trying to please them. Make it your own. That took me a long time to learn.

The first job where I actually made money was on 'Guiding Light,' the soap opera. And I played a maid. My name was Ginger, and I had a Brooklyn accent - a really bad one, if I remember correctly.

I never think of a project as just being comedy or just being drama - even with 'Masters of Sex.' I like being sort of messy, like life is.

The fact that 'Mom' is not joke, joke, joke - and is investing in these characters and their lives, things that really happen to people - I think it's resonating, and that's why people are tuning into it and not just dismissing it as a multi-cam sitcom.

The way you talk to yourself sometimes is terrible! I hear myself, and I go, 'I can't believe you're talking to my friend Allison like that!' It's really terrible, the things we say to ourselves.

One out of forty American men wears women's clothing. We've had more than forty presidents. One of these guys has been dancing around the Oval Office in a prom dress.

I'm a sponge. I sometimes don't want to go out of my house because it's like, 'Who's going to make me cry today?'

I can tell when men are threatened by my height.

Every character I do has a bit of my mum in her. She's like the doyenne of Dayton, Ohio.

Someone said I wasn't attractive enough. People say those things, but they make you stronger. Then you can win an Emmy and think, ha, ha, ha.

I'd like to make really important movies, like American Beauty. I was really proud to be a part of that movie.

I never know how I'll feel on any given day, but I've got to look around me and take what I got and find some inspiration, some anger.

If I could stomach the awful part of being a veterinarian, which involves sticking your hand up animals' behinds, I would be a vet.

I can access emotions very easily.

I'd love to do a James Bond-y kind of villain!

I was a late bloomer in a lot of areas in life.

The loss of my brother was a huge moment, a life-changer for me.