Maybe you're not perfect, but you're willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That's a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there's something incredibly hopeful about that.
Brie Larson
I don't really have any people in my life who aren't gypsies.
The same myths are told in every culture, and they might swap out details, but it's still the same story. It's the same story, but with a different face.
I just really like learning. I have to keep using my brain; otherwise, I get depressed.
The hardest pill for me to swallow has been receiving recognition, getting dressed up, going to events. That's the part that has always terrified me. You can see dozens of photos where I have zero hair and makeup and I'm wearing my own jeans and T-shirt, because I was not that interested in that side of it.
I'm so used to swimming with the piranhas. And they're really not that bad.
I can be whoever I want. I can feel however I want.
I went through a phase of eating dinner in the shower because I thought, 'Why don't we do that?' Then I realised, 'Because it doesn't make any sense.' It doesn't save any time, and you can't really get into a steak and baked potato when there's water pouring on you.
My number-one website is brainpickings.org. It opens you up to different authors and gives insights into the literary world. Reading about the love letters novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote to his wife Vera blew my mind. Fascinating.
I have a sister and her name is Mimsy, like from 'Alice in Wonderland,' so we've got some strange names in our family.
I just don't want to stop finding things interesting. I don't want to ever stop learning. I want to be a weird encyclopedia of bizarre knowledge.
I started watching so many different types of women, saw all the complexities of them, all the ways and the look and shapes they could be, and I felt it was missing for me in American film. I didn't see anybody I was watching in movies that felt like me. I felt rather tortured and lonely about it.
There are so many opportunities to learn things online, like between Coursera and Khan Academy and Duolingo. There are these awesome websites that are kind of these little personal Aristotles. There are times when I'm preparing for a role of some kind, and then I'll focus on a certain subject.
Women are such strong, powerful leaders, and a lot of the time, we play it silent.
I think I was always a little sponge as a kid, and I was always looking for more information constantly.
I guess I was always an outsider and some kind of anarchist.
I hope to direct at some point, but I don't feel the pressure to rush it. I want to really know what it is that I'm doing.
Trends are not real; they are for the consumer, and once we can get enough of us to free ourselves from it and realize that it's not about strong-arming our way through, it's about understanding that we are so needed for the balance of this planet, then I think we can start having changes.
I'm really not interested in acting as a facade, I'm interested in it as an emotional expression and as a transcendent experience for an individual. I find that a lot of people, a lot of young actors, haven't gotten to the point where they're comfortable being stripped down. They're still interested in ornate jackets.
I love discussing social issues, but I'm not interested in scare tactics. I believe there is a way to bring awareness in tandem with forgiveness and love.
I love to cook, and I've just gotten more and more into it over the years, just because it's the best way to stay creative.
'Basmati Blues' deals with a great social issue, GMOs, but it's told through love and song and dance.
I've always felt like I've had the ability to choose which roles I was going to play. I don't think that the industry agreed with me, but I've always had a bit of a headstrong attitude of only doing the things that I really believe in and want to explore.
In my personal opinion, you miss out on the beauty of the moment if you go in planning what the moment is. It's like having a vacation too jam-packed with activities. You miss all of the sunsets.
For me, 'Room' is an opportunity to relive an aspect of my childhood that I hadn't put a ton of thought into.
I'm just a person. I'm not anything!
I'm trying to find new ways to entertain myself because, if my whole world is doing interviews, I might as well put them in places I've wanted to see.
It can get really messy inside my head, and it's usually just because everybody can get really self-centered at some point. And so what usually keeps me from quitting is that my reasons for quitting are just lame. I wouldn't want anybody else to talk to myself the way that I talk to myself.
There is so much to be gained from adulthood! Feelings just become so much deeper. The feeling of sadness and loss is much deeper than when you were a kid, but the feelings of love and happiness have also so much more dimension when you get older... That is what's so hard and exciting about being a human being.
I think my mystery, or any person's mystery, is the thing that makes them most interesting. I try to be as conscious as possible of keeping that alive.
We had very few things. I had a couple pairs of jeans, a couple shirts. And same with my mom and sister. I think my sister had, like, two toys. We were living off of instant noodles.
I love Grimes.
I won't do things for money. I can't.
I'm pretty tough and picky when it comes to actors that I admire.
I look at something like 'Short Term 12,' and that character has a lot of pain, and I wouldn't have known how to portray that if I hadn't experienced pain myself.
I have a lot of different influences. Everything from Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani, The Clash, Kanye West - just a lot of different artists.
A lot of stuff I was reading in mythology was about how women used to be taught to be wild. The wild woman was an essence that existed in the world. We're still coming back from many years of us being chiseled out to be identical and quiet.
It's really hard to see yourself and to recognize that you are a human being like everybody else. You just think everybody's judging you.
I can't tell you how many times I quit only to realize that when the work has been your life, you don't really have a life without it.
My first acting gig was a skit for Jay Leno on 'The Tonight Show.' It was this Barbie commercial where I got to pour mud all over Barbie dolls and watch the heads pop off. It was so exciting, a lot of fun.
I didn't have a regular school experience and wanted a more abstract way of learning. I started exploring in lots of different creative ways. It gave me the opportunity to travel and play music, so it was good for me.
There's nothing I'd say that keeps me awake at night, but I think that - when you're working with a group of people that are so beyond talented - that, every day, you wake up going, 'All right, I gotta fight to stay at the same level as these people.' That's what makes it fun.
I'm just not in a place in my life where I worry about something unnecessarily.
I don't deal well with being told what to wear and sit on a mark. It just feels like my soul is being ripped out.
It seems like people have to get their thrills somehow.
Growing up, I just loved movies. It was how I saw the world, which I wanted to learn more about.
I found I could perform in front of 200 people, but I would still feel nervous having a one-on-one conversation.
The constant is always mythologies and the very first stories that we have. All of the movies that last, that you return to, the movies that struck you as a kid and continue to open up to you 10 years later and 10 years after that - those are the movies I want to make. Those things are eternal.
I made three or four different fonts during 'Short Term 12' -' it was how I'd calm my mind between scenes. I have graph paper and gel pens, and I would do the alphabet: just do 'a' over and over again until I got it perfect and then go to 'b' and then 'c'.
Whenever you want something that you're not going to get, suddenly the whiney 3-year-old comes out in you.
