Mary Steenburgen
I couldn't imagine trying anything else besides acting. But I didn't know that to make it meant I'd be on a movie screen.
I didn't work for a couple of years after the Oscar because everybody kept offering me bad versions of Lynda Dummar.
There's no strategy involved in my career decisions. I do whatever roles make my heart beat faster.
My family didn't have money to travel, so reading was how I knew about the world. It made me hungry to have more experiences than just what I could possibly experience in Arkansas.
My dad had a series of heart attacks when I was a little girl, and our world was shaped by these huge, traumatic events.
When I was going through sad times, I'd watch 'Cheers' at the end of the day to make me feel better.
Reading is how I became an actor because I didn't grow up in a house where there was an awareness of film or theater. I also grew up in a house full of teachers, so reading was big in our world.
Our culture loves movies and TV, which is wonderful, but there's something a little bit passive sometimes about watching, because you're looking at other people's imagination at work.
When you read books, you kind of create that whole world in your mind, and you go on a journey with the author of that book. I think that's really a good thing.
I wrote my first song when I was 54 years old.
The time that Ted and I spend talking about our careers is almost infinitesimally small. We mostly talk about our kids and our grandkids. I think we talk about our careers if something funny happened at work. We're very childlike in many ways.
I'm not a great horse person, but I love horses, and I love all of it. The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.
My son, he has a film group, a bunch of film nerds that sit around and screen movies, and when they had Mary Steenburgen Night, the two movies they screened were 'Melvin And Howard' and 'Clifford.'
'Last Man On Earth,' I have to say, is a love for me. I mean, a true passion. To people who haven't watched it or who've watched a little and thought, 'Ah, I don't know where this is going,' or whatever, I urge them to check it out again.
Like most people, I have a dark side, but because of roles I played early on, people tend not to guess that.
I used to think I was going to die wise, and now, the one wisdom I have is I know very little.
I had a sense of mortality since I was a little girl, which has to do with my father, who nearly died eight times in my childhood. He had eight heart attacks.
We tell our kids to try for what they want. We cheer them on. But at some point, we stop doing this for ourselves. We shouldn't be so quick to close doors.
I love dark chocolate, 70 percent and up.
'Last Man On Earth' is just one of the most original projects I've ever been involved with.
I've never been able to write a movie script. I respect that skill so much, but it's not been the way my brain works.
I love writing music.
As an actress, my best tools are my emotions and expressions.
I've done little things, including Botox, but it didn't feel right for me.
If you're not growing, you're dying, and I'm not ready for that.
The part in 'Philadelphia' where I represent the law firm that's firing Tom Hanks, that was a hard part for me because I lost one of my best friends to AIDS, and it was hard for me to play a part that wasn't sympathetic to someone with AIDS.
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.
'Step Brothers' was like a reward for going through my whole career and somehow surviving.
I'm not saying it's easy, and it's definitely harder for women. Because there is definitely a double standard about gorgeous older men, and it's different for older women.
The accordion came from just having a desire to play music. Somehow, I have slowly taught myself.
I remember when I was growing up and watching southern people depicted on television, I thought, 'Well, based on what I'm seeing, I guess I'm supposed to be stupid and racist.' It's still, sadly, the easy route for a writer to go.
Christopher Lloyd was actually the first person - or certainly one of the first few - who ever spoke to me on film.
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 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.
It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.
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.
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.
Anything to do with the South resonates with me, because I'm Southern.
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 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.
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.
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.
I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.
I have never had any success in planning my life, really.
I don't know how I could plan my career.
I am lucky enough not to have to take jobs unless I love the material.
There's something inside of me that just connects or doesn't connect with the project.
I have never been able to sing in the shower, much less in front of anybody.
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.