Quotes About Acting

The kids know me from 'Babe,' but usually it is 'L.A. Confidential' that people remember, which was the second film I did. I have worked with some really good people and the films that I've done for the most part have been good.

I loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.

I think that among my friends I'm known as being a hard worker; I think if you want to be an actor, there can't be any compromise. You have to work all day, every day. It's not a 9-5 job. There's always something to learn.

Acting is not a normal job, no, but I don't think that takes me out of the game as far as having had the experience of being a hard worker.

I think acting is a gift. I look at someone like Ben Kingsley, and he's incredibly charismatic, even when he's not acting. He's an incredibly hard worker, and he has a very specific system that he does with his work.

I think working with Johnny Depp was very intimidating. It was my fault though. I mean he's a total cool nice, nice guy, but I was just so, I don't know, overpowered by his presence. Like he's a very mystic person. He's older so I never really warmed up around him. I was so stiff.

I was working with Bryan Cranston in 'All the Way.' We were about to make an entrance together - I was Hoover, he was LBJ - and he says to me, 'You should play the brother in 'Better Call Saul.' I was like 'What?' and it was time to go on. I'm doing the scene, and I can't think of what Hoover's supposed to say.

I don't use any techniques; I'm not trained to be an actor. I just enjoy working in films.

I never did go back to acting class. I was too busy working.

On 'Love Actually,' I met Hugh Grant, who is a relative: our great-grandmothers were sisters. He'd call me cousin and ruffle my hair. And it was brilliant working with David Tennant on 'Doctor Who.'

People say they love the characters I've chosen in my career. But I didn't choose anything. I just happened to be working and these were offered to me.

When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.

I'm involved in some action scenes, so they'll train me for that. I'll be working with my acting coach to prepare for my character.

I think the most fun part about working on 'Good Luck Charlie' is spending time with everyone, honestly, because everybody on set is like my brother and sister and mom and dad. They're so fun to be around, so that's probably the best part about working there.

I've been working very hard off-off-off-off-off-off-off Broadway and doing little films and really sweating my butt off in tiny little black boxes.

If I was working nine to five, acting would be my hobby... I always feel like maybe I should do an Open University degree. But I'm never going to.

I'm not at my best when I'm not working - I'm certainly not at my happiest. Acting will always be my first love.

It's a tremendous asset if you have a visual eye because you can make huge visual statements in a very theatrical way and play to the strength of theatre. But the high end of directing is working with actors and making the acting the best it can be.

I don't watch anything of mine much. I haven't gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I'd be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

I just love the process of working with other actors. It's like jamming with a musician, except it takes a little more effort to get to that place as an actor, because you have the cameras and lights and everything. But I love jamming with these people.

Music, in Mexico, just wasn't working out. So, I fell into acting and I just fell in love with it. It was amazing! It was a great safe place to just vent.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on 'Immortals.'

That's what sets apart one actor from another, and that you can't teach. You can't give someone that. When you're working, putting a character together, or in a scene, that's where things will happen that you have to have the intuition to notice them, and to register them.

Leave me to the thing I love. I love acting. But being called 'the greatest living actress' - a designation not even my mother would sanction - is the opposite of good or valuable or useful. It is a curse for a working actor.