Do I feel like I still need to prove myself? Absolutely. And I want to feel that way, and I like that.
— Mary Steenburgen
I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.
Christopher Lloyd was actually the first person - or certainly one of the first few - who ever spoke to me on film.
Let me put it this way. There is more to acting than just acting like somebody. I like to act in such a way that other people get some notion of what it's like to be somebody.
I was a waitress for six years in New York. I actually got fascinated to see how fast and how good a waitress I could be. I was doing it, so I tried to do it as well as I could.
I did sing in a choir for a while, but if anybody was sick, I always whispered my songs to make sure nobody could pick out my voice.
I am lucky enough not to have to take jobs unless I love the material.
I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.
I take the fact that films cost a lot of money very seriously, but once in a while to have somebody say, This is a big scene, take your time with it, is important. That's John Sayles.
Anything to do with the South resonates with me, because I'm Southern.
It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.
I write music as a staff writer for Universal Music Group, and I have since 2007. I've never talked about it publicly because I wanted to earn the right to be in the same room as the great writers I write with and not shoot my mouth off because I'm an actor. It's really important to me, and I really care about it.
I've found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it's percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it.
I studied with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I was in the last class to study with him before he had his larynx removed, so I actually remember the sound of his voice. He was an incredible teacher.
I feel like I'm attracted to characters who have one foot firmly planted on the ground. And their heads up in the clouds somewhere. Practical dreamers. They try to impress you that they've got this whole thing figured out, but there's more going on inside their heads than you might imagine.
I got my SAG card on my first movie, 'Goin' South,' with Jack Nicholson in 1978.
I have never been able to sing in the shower, much less in front of anybody.
I don't know how I could plan my career.
I was this person with this weird last name from New York that no one had ever heard of. But my screen test I guess, according to him, was the best. So I got the part, which was incredible.
There's just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.
I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.
I know this is kind of corny, but we thought about renewing our vows again because I think my mom would really love it if we did that in Arkansas, where I came from.
I'm a very musical person.
The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.
I'm a chameleon when it comes to languages.
I would say that the things that have really left a mark on me have more to do with my family and my children's lives rather than a film role.
I think, as an actor, you're constantly confronted with your fear of sticking your neck out.
There's something inside of me that just connects or doesn't connect with the project.
I have never had any success in planning my life, really.
It was a few days later I came out to Hollywood for a screen test, and so did a lot of other people. So, I really didn't think I would get it. I was definitely the one that was least likely to get it, because everyone else was an already established star.
There's a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.
I'd already made the decision before I'd even read it-just because it was John Sayles. Then when I read it, the themes were actually themes that have been a big part of my life.
