I'm so different to the roles I play, and perhaps that's why they are appealing to me as an actor. But I would never want to inhabit my characters' shoes in real life.
— Jennifer Jason Leigh
I'm a fraidy cat. I play everything very safe in my life, so I think that's why I like characters that don't.
My mom's a screenwriter, and before that, she was an actress, and my father was an actor; my stepfather was a director, so I was on sets a lot as a kid. I loved the magic of the set. You walk in, and it's a living room, and you walk outside, and it's just a piece of wood held up by another piece of wood.
I really go against drama in my life. Life is too short.
I've always had so much admiration for my mom. She's so inspiring as a woman and as an artist.
When you get called to come in and audition for Tarantino, it's incredibly exciting.
I've never really been a careerist; I've never been able to step back and look at anything in that way. I though this is just what happens. I did take my work very seriously. I loved immersing myself in a character. I loved getting the opportunity to do that. I didn't realize how extraordinary it was, how lucky I was, because I was young.
I think I am talented - but I also think I'm very lucky.
On film, I'm very mysterious, but in life I'm very dull.
I just don't want to talk about my personal life. I feel like it's mine, I'm not trying to promote it. It's nice to have things that are your own, that you value enough that you don't have to use to sell a movie.
When I find a role I want to play, I just go after it.
I don't really watch my moves all that often; I mean, really, I don't.
I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in and not just casually observe.
I like to investigate all different kinds of people, I guess, and find out what makes them who they are, and try to be honest in the portrayal, and truthful, and find out how to understand that person, how to communicate that person's experience.
One of the reasons that I do a lot of different kinds of pictures is because I learn a lot when I'm doing them.
I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in, and not just casually observe. Whatever my part in it, just as an audience member, I find that exciting.
I could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.
I used to go to Haagen-Dazs and order three banana splits at a time!
I sort of spend every moment that I'm not working doing things with my son. You do the best you can, and you make the most of the time you have.
Susie Waggoner in 'Miami Blues' is just such a sweetheart, such an innocent. When I watch that, I really feel like I'm watching Susie Waggoner. I don't really see myself. And there's a simplicity to it that I really like.
I think that's an incredible thing that we can do as actors - to feel empathy toward someone that you may otherwise detest, you know?
'Georgia' is very personal to me. 'Anniversary Party' was great. 'Anomalisa' is also another one that, particularly, is in my heart and will be forever. I do think it's a masterpiece; I really do.
I love acting, but I am a mom, and the roles just weren't coming because of a mixture of things: because I'm not ambitious, and because I'm older, and I had a baby. I really felt like I had said a graceful and completely happy goodbye to acting in a significant way. And I had sort of made my peace with that.
Not to compare an actor to a painter, but you can go through different phases and still be the same artist, y'know?
I remember I once went to a nutritionist who said I come from good Russian-Jewish peasant stock, which means I can hold a potato in my body for a week, if need be.
I've always done roles that really appealed to me on a gut level and which I found inspiring.
I love Polaroids and I have a Polaroid camera collection from the '50s.
People equate success with youth. And if you haven't had a certain amount of success by a certain time in your life, it's never going to happen. There's a fear about that. So people start lying about their age really young. I've never done that because I think it's so insignificant.
People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person - and that's just not me.
Acting for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible.
Writing, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying.
Writing, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying. I've never been happier.
I'm a typical middle child. I'm the mediator. The one that makes everything OK, puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody's happy. It's hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.
I love being in therapy. It's just constantly fulfilling for me.
Being a good girl means suppressing a lot.
There's a lot of magic involved in movies that as a child I really appreciated. So I love bringing my son to set. It reminds me of what I loved doing as a child, and also, as an actor, you have a lot of down time.
I feel like I had a great career in a way. Maybe not the most successful monetarily or in other ways, but creatively, I feel incredibly fortunate.
My mother always helped me because she was kind of a research fanatic. When she would write a screenplay, there would be so much research all over the walls. And so when I started working as an actress, I would do the same thing. She instilled in me a love of taking everything very seriously. It didn't matter what it was.
'The Hateful Eight' is like theatre.
I loved being on the set with my stepfather. I loved the magic of movies. I went on the set of 'The Mod Squad' - I mean, can you imagine? Just walking into a living room and then walking behind the living room, and it's just flat. There's nothing I love more than being on a sound stage.
I'm not great at judging a career. Or planning one.
I think I live in this mythical world where doing the parts I do is not going to hurt me, and telling people my age is not going to hurt me. And it actually does. It's a bit sick-making but, you know, I can't change who I am.
I don't want to play the same person twice, that's not why I wanted to act.
I hate parties. I don't like big crowded things.
I'd love to have children, and I think marriage is great, I really do.
You know, you really do choose your existence in a way.
I loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself.
It's very exciting to work with people who inspire you.
I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.
I just don't plan things. I live a month at a time.
