I'm not a huge risk taker. I think that, for me, I take certain kinds of risks, but if you look at me, you wouldn't say I was a big risk taker. I'm not going to jump out of an airplane and parachute and things like that. That's not really me.
— Joan Allen
I'm pretty picky about plays.
I learn from each experience, and I take it for what it is and gain what I can.
It's important to really listen to the other person and have them feel like they're heard, to make sure the relationship feels equal.
How do we escape who we are? I think, going to college, I felt freer. I loved the clean slate. I wasn't known as the sort of nerdy, studious girl. I met gay people for the first time in my life. I needed that expansion from a very conservative little town.
I didn't really think about being a movie star. I was more about theater.
My father passed away at, like, 87.
I had gone through a mother having dementia in the last couple of years of her life. She was in a nursing facility in my little hometown area of northern Illinois, so I got to see a lot of other patients there in various stages of the disease. I had a firsthand exposure to it in a pretty big way.
There are not many things that can happen much worse to a family than having a member taken and not knowing what happened to them.
I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingenue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer, or Jessica Lange. I'm a bit quirkier than that.
I was a very good girl for a long time, that's what really drew me to acting. The stage was the perfect place to be outrageous, to be sad, to be angry, to be all these different things.
I'm hard to pin down. I tend to look different in films.
I certainly do get at the end of my rope at times. We all do.
It's such a great feeling to make people laugh. I know I've made people cry or want to slit their wrists, but to make people laugh is a very intoxicating, wonderful thing.
I love to walk three to four miles a day if I can.
I thought that I wanted to be a cheerleader because I was one in middle school.
When I read something, first I have an instinctual, emotional response to it. But of course, acting isn't only just feeling an instinct for what's going on in the moment with the character. You have to be able to carve it out and consider, follow, and create the whole journey that the character you play is going through.
I think there's been a tendency to place me in what has been characterised as the 'moral centre' of the film. In films like 'The Ice Storm' and 'The Crucible' and 'Nixon,' that's the sort of the persona that emerged.
I was the good girl. The straight A student, on the honour roll, part of the choir... I played the cello badly. I did plays.
I think plays deserve other interpretations. They should live on, and other people should should take their hand at them. I'm very supportive of that.
When I was 20 years old and first with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, we had an 88-seat theater in a basement and no money.
'Room' was more a study of an individual event, and 'The Family' takes off from there.
I just try and do the best with every role I get to do. Hopefully the experience in itself is a good experience and people will want to work with me.
I was always much more shy. All I knew was that I loved to act. But I don't know about the other part of it. I'm not sure I had the chutzpah to go and prove yourself.
I never liked the bar scene. I tried to like it. I would give it a try every three or four months. I'd think, tonight I'm going out. But I never met anybody in that circumstance.
I get recognised sometimes. But I just live my life. I get on the bus, I get on the subway, it's not a problem.
Almost any film that you do is an opportunity to open you up and make you more aware of an area that you might not be thinking about. That's what is kind of cool, or one of the cool things about this profession.
Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful, even if it was just vicariously.
My favorite thing is to hang out at my house, be on my beautiful property, prune bushes, take a long walk, build a fire, and read.
My collaboration with Sally Potter on a small movie, 'Yes,' was very special to me. It helped my growth as an actor.
Everything starts with what's on the page, what a writer has come up with. And whether it is a big studio film or independent film, is the story being well told? Is it interesting? Is the character interesting? And is there something about the character that may stretch me?
I wasn't one of those kids who was like, 'Get me to New York. Get me to a big city.' I was always much more shy. All I knew was that I loved to act.
My favorite way of learning for acting has been doing it, not talking about it.
My mother had very poor hearing for many years, until she went basically into - I guess I would call it a psychotic break. She was OK one day, and the next day she was completely cuckoo, violent, paranoid.
I have three wonderful siblings, and we all pitched in equally to help our mother.
I don't get tons of scripts to be looking at and deciding on in terms of feature films; the industry has changed. Fortunately, with television and streaming and original series online, there's this whole new thing that has opened up, which I think is fantastic.
I think the people who cast films tend to think of me in regard to strong women with integrity and a lot of it has been very good.
Once I got to high school and auditioned for a play and got in, I thought this was really what I was looking for. Once that had got cleared up, from 13 on, that was it.
I think I knew acting was what I wanted to do. But I was from this small town and there was no place for an adult to recognise it.
I don't have a political bone in my body.
I think that I do separate myself a fair amount. And I don't feel like I am representing women. That's up to however people interpret it once they sort of see it.
