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.
Jennifer Jason Leigh
When I find a role I want to play, I just go after it.
You know, you really do choose your existence in a way.
Acting for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible.
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 could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.
I really go against drama in my life. Life is too short.
I loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself.
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.
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'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'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 love being in therapy. It's just constantly fulfilling for me.
I used to hang out by the food table at parties because you don't have to talk to anybody. If you do then you can talk about the food.
I just don't plan things. I live a month at a time.
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.
Writing, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying. I've never been happier.
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.
It's very exciting to work with people who inspire you.
Writing, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying.
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.
I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in and not just casually observe.
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.
I don't really watch my moves all that often; I mean, really, I don't.
I'd love to have children, and I think marriage is great, I really do.
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.
I hate parties. I don't like big crowded things.
I love Polaroids and I have a Polaroid camera collection from the '50s.
I don't want to play the same person twice, that's not why I wanted to act.
I've always done roles that really appealed to me on a gut level and which I found inspiring.
On film, I'm very mysterious, but in life I'm very dull.
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 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 think I am talented - but I also think I'm very lucky.
I'm not great at judging a career. Or planning one.
Not to compare an actor to a painter, but you can go through different phases and still be the same artist, y'know?
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 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.
When you get called to come in and audition for Tarantino, it's incredibly exciting.
'The Hateful Eight' is like theatre.
'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've always had so much admiration for my mom. She's so inspiring as a woman and as an artist.
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.
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?
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 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 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.
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.
Being a good girl means suppressing a lot.
I used to go to Haagen-Dazs and order three banana splits at a time!
