12 quotes found
"You have to be fierce as an actor. It’s not the actor’s job to be interesting; that’s the script’s job. It’s our job to be truthful and brave."
"So often in films there are two ways a female can be portrayed: either innocent and virginal or the complete opposite. You never have the middle ground, and I was really keen to portray a realistic, honest approach of who I think a young woman would be in this situation – strong and independent."
"It was a good 10 hours in the makeup chair, and then I’d go and do a 12-hour day on set, and the makeup artist, Sarah Rubano, who was incredible, would constantly be touching me up and making sure my contacts were all right and all those sorts of things."
"Acting is the only thing I do, the only thing I know. It’s a marathon for me. There is a lot of thought that goes into the choices I make as an actor and the films I decide to do. It’s important to fill up your life with varied experiences, then return to set, a sacred place to release and reveal. Each time I’m cast, it feels like a miracle, and I prepare as if it might be my last role—an energy that makes me work harder and be more present on set."
"I would wake up very early, put my phone on a timer for maybe an hour at a time, and write in the style of a stream of consciousness, rather than script form, because I found that to be an obstacle in me getting my ideas down. I would write as Pearl, as me … but Pearl is me. I mean, all my characters are me, turned up or turned down. It’s all me exploring different facets of myself."
"The truth is, I hate acting. Acting is actually the hardest thing to do. It's this elusive thing and you think you have it—it’s like trying to grip smoke. I love it so much."
"In the beginning of my career, I was just happy to be in a movie. ‘I'll just do whatever you give me. I'll be there.’ As time has progressed, I view myself as more valuable, with more to give than just being in a movie. Working with Ti [West] and being involved from the start has shown me I can have agency over the creative process. A meaningful voice can go beyond acting—screenwriting, producing, having input—and that has become clearer. It's about more than being happy to be here; it's about making great cinema."
"I saw acting as a way to get out of the situation I was in. That’s really what made me work as hard as I did. It was my driving force. ‘If this doesn’t work, then I’m going to go back to that, and I can’t let that be. So this needs to work. There’s no plan B. I have to do whatever it takes to make this scene good, to make sure that I’m good enough as an actor."
"I see Elizabeth as a butterfly or a moth. She’s fluttering and trying to find her place in this world."
"To know [that] the lead of a movie is willing to basically do whatever to make the movie is a good feeling. That inspires the confidence to push things. Movies like Pearl and MaXXXine can be just that little bit wilder than they would have been otherwise. And that’s fun."
"Mia is a unicorn of an actress. It’s not like you could ever say, ‘We need a Mia Goth type,’ because there is no type. There’s just Mia."
"Like everybody else, I was blown away. That’s when I said, 'However she makes the sauce, I would love to cook with her. What she was doing in Pearl was incredibly hard to do. I thought, My God, she just did a quadruple somersault over a fire pit."