Susan Sarandon
Sometimes when you have to go into something, unless you're gifted and can just turn it on and off like a jukebox, you find someplace where there's nothing going on to get yourself into whatever state your character is entering into.Collection: Character
I can't speak for other people, but for me, it never really worked to think something like, "What Beatle did she like in high school?" or those kinds of elaborate backstories.Collection: School
I'd have conversations with the camera crew about what was going on in the scene, so that they were prepared to shoot it. I love the fact that when you work, you create this tribe.Collection: Cameras
You create this situation where you are so dependent on each other. That's especially true for film. In theater, the actor has much more say, much more control, for better or worse.Collection: Actors
I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself.Collection: War
This Catholic thing, I think what it does is it makes a place for mystery in a person. And even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.Collection: Art
I've just come back from Vegas, and I was in on the caucus process. It's insane. What a mess. And also with these particular candidates who are running, so many times I said, "I just wish Kurt Vonnegut were alive." This is like something he would be writing. This is just crazy stuff. I would love to hear his take on it.Collection: Running
We've legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come.Collection: Weed
With the help of folks like you and me, Heifer International tackles the problem of hunger one family at a time with gifts of renewable resources - farm animals that are ongoing sources of food and income.Collection: Animal
New York is very user-friendly if you don't want to be in a car all the time. It can also provide you with surprises because it's so compressed - if you walk around, you just find things.Collection: New York
In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control.Collection: Cutting
Do you really expect me to say gravity hasn't taken its toll? No. But as I'm earning these lines [in my face], I'm making an aesthetic choice.Collection: Taken
I feel I`ve always been on the outside and always on the edge of an abyss. The women I portray, and the woman I am, are ordinary but maybe find themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances, and what they do is at great cost.Collection: Ordinary
I hope they're present in their lives and feel some kind of empathy. I think a lot of the mistakes that have been made in the world have been through a lack of empathy. If you can identify with someone else and empathise with someone else, then activism is a short step away, she explained in an interview with Parade.Collection: Mistake
What I like about The Meddler style of movie is that it's a fairly lighthearted romantic comedy, but there are hidden moments where something happens that's unexpected, that hopefully have some kind of emotional resonance that you didn't see coming. I love when a film does that.Collection: Emotional
When my children wake up in the morning they know they will eat breakfast, get hugs from their parents, go to a good, safe school. Plates are full and store windows are glittering. But at the same time the great majority of the world's children and women stand - no - shiver on the precipiceCollection: Morning
Sometimes what happens is that, when you micromanage actors and moments, it just doesn't quite live.Collection: Actors
I think you have to be ready to switch gears and go with the team as a director, as opposed to superimposing your own strict idea of the story. There are very few directors that can micromanage and still come out with something that's living and breathing on a page. Wes Anderson is one of those.Collection: Team
To each person, their own way of death - with dignity.Collection: Death
I feel it's easier to sit in the backseat and go, "Oh, yeah, let's go there." You're not worried about getting to the destination. But the guy or the woman who has to get you to the destination is worried about a lot of other things, so my job as an actor is to try as many things as possible, be as open as possible, listen, and keep my heart open.Collection: Jobs
Really, for me, it's important to know who's pitching and who's catching - just what that scene is supposed to accomplish in terms of storytelling. That being said, on the day, basically what you're trying to get yourself into an open place. And if the character is in a state of anxiety or vulnerability, you try to find some touchstone.Collection: Character
That's the thing about independently minded children. You bring them up teaching them to question authority, and you forget that the very first authority they question is you.Collection: Children
One of the first lessons I learned as a mom was to forgive myself for not being perfect and to try to prioritize what was really important. I had to really accept very early on that after a while, reading a script and finding the form for the class trip, it was hard to realize which one had priority at times. So I just had to say, "You're doing the best you can, and when you make a mistake, apologize. Your kids know that you love them."Collection: Mom
Everything's serendipitous and there's no way of knowing who's going to get sick or who's going to get hit by a bus or who's going to fall in love and who's going to get pregnant. All the things that happen, it's up for grabs so it's kind of an exercise in surrender in a way.Collection: Falling In Love
I hesitate to direct even though I feel I contribute a lot on a set.Collection: Feels
We have more families at risk with the death penalty. It targets the voiceless, the poor, people of color. And so it's important just to understand what your government is doing and how much they are spending.Collection: Government
Most people are not affected by [the death penalty]. It's like how many people are actually sent to Iraq and Afghanistan? Such a small percentage.Collection: Iraq
When Alan Rickman, a dear friend of mine, played villains, he always made it complicated. He didn't redeem what they did, but he made you feel that it was hard for them to be so horrible.Collection: Complicated
I married him [Chris Sarandon] my senior year, and after I graduated, he went to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and I tagged along and was doing some local modeling and commercials and things like that. A woman named Jane Oliver, who handled Sylvester Stallone, saw Chris at the theater and asked him to come in and audition. We went in and auditioned - he needed someone to read with him. I read with him, and she said, "Well, why don't both of you come back in the fall."Collection: Senior
Theater for me is terrifying but much more rewarding, because you know what they're seeing. Film is all little bits and pieces. And you can do an amazing job, but if the camera isn't getting it, it doesn't work. And then other times when you feel you really weren't present, and then you see it and somehow it works. So there's a mystery, there's a strange collaboration that takes place with everybody.Collection: Jobs
I remember Anthony Perkins saying, "Real is not necessarily interesting." So real is not enough. But what happens as an actor is that you're really trained to listen and to be open and have empathy. It's such a natural consequence that you end up being more political. You can empathize with the mother whose kids are going to be sent to Iraq, or you can emphasize with the mother who is losing their child to a disease. How could you not then be active? So you're automatically drawn to that aspect in the rest of your life.Collection: Mother
I think where you get into trouble - for instance the mixing of sex and violence - is when you're telling an audience that this horrible thing is enjoyable. The suffering just gets out of hand too much. It becomes pornographic.Collection: Sex
When I got the script for Thelma & Louise, when I met with the director, Ridley Scott, I said, "I don't want to do a revenge film. I'm not interested in doing that moment in the script after they shoot the truck, where it says they jump up and down and they're real happy about it".Collection: Revenge
In terms of our foreign policy, that's where we made a mistake after 9/11. Everyone's going, "Why, why, why," and there wasn't any investigation or learning from any of what we had been doing up to that time that had set us up.Collection: Mistake
There are many actresses that are working longer, because until you change the playing field and make it economically stronger for women, it's very difficult to say no to somebody when that's your only gig. If you're a producer, or if you have more power, you're going to be in a position to know that if you burn that bridge, there'll still be this bridge open. But still - when people ask me 'do you think your politics have decreased your chances of working, I say: 'In Hollywood, most of the prejudice has to do with if you're old or fat.' Power can't forgive that".Collection: Thinking
It is important to have a woman editor. Movie is an industry where it is predominantly women. Male editors might cut out pauses that are interesting, while a woman might not be afraid of that pause. Trying to do a movie with an editor who is not funny is impossible. There are certain talents that go with certain genders.Collection: Cutting
Knowledge is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS. Yet millions of children are missing an education. Missing their teachers who have died of the disease. Missing from class as they stay home to care for their dying mothers and fathers. Children are missing your support. United for Children. Unite against AIDS.Collection: Mother
I'm always trying to have a good time on set because that's when things happen. That's when you're playful.Collection: Always Trying
What is fabulous about gay marriage is that it redefines the gender designated jobs, then you throw in transgender and you don't just have the five primary colors of the crayons. We have to really look at what it means to be a man or a woman in a much more generous and creative way.Collection: Mean
I got married to Chris Sarandon, who was a graduate student, and he knew everything at that point, I thought, because he was older. He introduced me to poetry and black-and-white movies.Collection: Black And White
How will the bombing of Baghdad, a city of five million, accomplish a regime change?Collection: Cities
My intent is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are less readily heard - children and women at riskCollection: Children
If Wes Anderson has a very strong cast, he can direct the minutia of that story and still manage to have something that lives and breathes.Collection: Strong
The directors I consider really great have the ability to recognize when something's going in an unexpected direction and see it as a bonus and be able to go with it, as opposed to locking down what they thought was going to happen.Collection: Directors
It helps me chill out and focus.Collection: Focus
You just can never count on a formula, on a movie that you think is going to be a big hit, and that's why you do it. You have to choose each one for what you think you'll learn and the fun you'll have. And maybe the cool people that you work with or a character that you're going to be able to explore ... You just keep your fingers crossed.Collection: Fun
I was very withdrawn and definitely played with dolls well into eighth grade. But I was the oldest of nine, and that grounded me in a way that I don't think I would have been grounded otherwise. So I was able to - or forced to - function practically. But I think, by nature, I was someone who lived in my head, in my imagination.Collection: Thinking
I always had a problem with original sin; I always had a problem with the exclusivity of the church and a lot of the things that the nuns taught me.Collection: Church
I've always had a really developed sense of justice. As a child, I would rotate my dolls' dresses for fear that they might come alive at midnight and one of them would always have the best dress on. Whatever it was that made me worry about my dolls I suppose has paid off in my career because, really, an actor is all about empathy and imagination. And those are the cornerstones of activism.Collection: Children