Quotes from Vera Farmiga

Honesty is not synonymous with truth.

I rely on my directors, a lot. I love being directed.

Ruminants are a perfectly normal thing to possess when you live in upstate New York. It's just moving scenery. It's kind of like the equivalent of Great Danes. It's the way you keep your grass mowed. It's the way you keep your weed-whacking to a minimum.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

My only real advice to Oscar nominees is, 'If you haven't actually seen a competitor's film, don't fib and say you have and blow smoke up their wahooziewhatsits.' Always best to be frank and tell them the truth.

The limelight is a tricky place, because you can't believe what's going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated.

I just can't feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don't understand her and want to understand her.

Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.

It's a delicate thing for me, with how involved I am in social media and being a part of people's lives in a way that they want me to.

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them - my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a wife, as a lover, as a daughter.

I cherish each director that I have. I want to be maneuvered out of my comfort zones. I don't have the time to prepare.

I've played a lot of mothers in my movies.

In these times, in this harsh, rude, warring world that we live in, where most of the bloodshed is 'My god is greater than your god,' and we're fighting in the name of our god, we have to find a way to peaceably coexist, spiritually.

I am drawn to intimate, often uncomfortable portraits of a woman persevering and awakening.

I'm saying that the depth of exploration of the male psyche and the female psyche is uneven. I see further, deeper renderings of what it means to be a man.

There are women who make things better, there are women who change things, there are women who make things happen, who make a difference. I want to be one of those women.

I don't necessarily need Hollywood.

I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

I've always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it's not the lines you say that are important - it's what exists between the lines. What I'm compelled by most is that transparency of thought, what is left unspoken.

I have tender, romantic associations with upstate New York.

I chase after inspiring stories.

Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.

I can't get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.

I look for struggle in the roles I choose - struggle and perseverance.