Quotes from Elizabeth Marvel

I ended up landing in London out of high school, and I saw a performance that Vanessa Redgrave gave, just because it was a cheap ticket, and I didn't know what to do with my afternoon, and I went in, and I saw this Eugene O'Neill play, and I sat in the fifth row, and I watched her.

I will happily work anywhere they need me to if they pay me well.

Tim Burton is an artist who has had a huge influence on me. I definitely share his sensibility. It's a joyful approach to darkness.

We have to be able to use our imaginations to make the character's experiences real to us.

The first play I ever did was with Michael Langham, Brian Bedford, and Colm Feore, at Stratford Festival. That was my first professional job, and I got to work with Garland Wright and so many great artists.

You talk through what exactly happened to Howard Dean on the campaign trail, what Bill Clinton must have lived through, what the daily grind of doing what these people have to do. And they can never lose their temper, they can never be tired, and they can never slip up, or it's on-camera, and it's everywhere - and it's over.

If you can see it, you can be it. And I believe in that.

I get to play a lot of powerful, smartest women in the room. And that's deeply satisfying.

I know all my tricks, and I'm pretty bored with them, so if that's all someone wants, I'd rather wait for TV money and not work so hard.

Trying to find a way to represent something that is truly frightening on stage is a fascinating challenge.

I love seeing people in their mess. I find that heartwarming. Charm just doesn't interest me. If I want to see charming people, I can watch TV.

When I was nursing my son, you're up all the time during the first year, and you're sort of brain dead. So I'd find myself watching Turner Classic Movies at odd hours.

I see artists as the first responders. And when the proverbial crap hits the fan, we are there to be of service, to tell the story, to bring a balm, to soothe, to provide catharsis. You know, not to make our work any more important or less important, but just that there is a great importance to it.

In some ways, I missed my era because I'm big and messy and have big feelings and take up space on a stage rather than being diminutive and childlike in my woman-ness.

As an actress, you have to be very naive.

We are in this amazing age of television where there's an incredible amount and an incredible quality of television, of long-form narrative.

I was a spooky kid; that was just my nature.

When I work onstage, I want to play roles that have real, deep theatricality, that aren't the sort you would easily see on television and in the movies.

Personally, I don't want to do theater that's very stylish, when it's just stories on stage that are basically the same as TV or film.

I'm dying for people to let me be funny!

Whenever I approach any character, I try to find examples to draw upon.