Actresses From Boston

"I think it felt challenging because I was a Black woman and also because I was a dark-skinned Black woman, because those roles didn't exist in a wide range, or they kind of felt always relegated to the background, almost like an afterthought. And so I knew that it was going to be very difficult. I think I knew for a fact that it was going to be more noes than yeses. I think I knew that for whatever reason, things beyond my control, meaning how I look, were going to determine what I was going to be allowed to do"

"I used to hate my gap as a kid, in front teeth ... and I would beg, beg, beg for braces because everybody had braces. Everybody was fixing their "horrible teeth," whatever that means. And my mom, she was just like, "No, absolutely not."...She said, "Don't you know that in Nigeria and throughout Africa, a gap is a sign of beauty? Why would you want to close it?" And I was like, "Sure, but we live in America."...."

"Naming in my culture will tell you more about the parent of the child than the child themself and also what is being spoken onto the child. So my full name is Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba, but the first name Uzoamaka, it means "the road is good." My second name, my middle name, it means "nothing is more important than your sisters," and my last name means "the mediator.”"

"…When my mother left me — if we believe in these sort of things — she came to me in my dream a week later and she said to me, just like this, "Uzo, you are settled." And it gave me such a peace and a calm that I could continue without her, because I never had [been without her]. She was always in my corner. I talked to my mom every day, whether [by] email, text, phone. And I know that those lessons, those teachings that she placed inside of me have readied me for this next phase of my life."

"Bette Davis was great. I kept blowing my lines in one scene with her because they were so awful to try to say. I finally told the director that and Bette immediately came to my rescue. "She's right," Bette shouted. "This girl is absolutely right." Later she told me, "Ruthie, never forget what you did today. . . never be afraid to fight for what you know is right." And I never did forget."

"The scene [in Champion] I liked best was the one on the beach, and apparently a number of fans agreed with me. About half the letters I received asked for a picture of me in the bathing suit."

"He surprised me on the second day of shooting by saying, "Do you know that this picture [Champion] is going to make you?" I couldn't believe that but Kirk insisted and even offered to make a bet on it. If I had taken the bet I would have lost, for the role of Emma did more for my career than any other role."

"My happiest 26 days in the movies were spent making the picture Champion. For, though you hear a great deal about teamwork in Hollywood, you almost never see as much of it as we did while shooting this film. Whenever there was a question about a scene, we'd hold a group conference, complete with producer, director and cast, to thrash the matter out. Each suggestion was not only considered but also thoroughly discussed. . . All this was immensely helpful to me in playing the role of Emma, for I was very young in pictures then, and this was quite a different type of role from the few I'd played."

"I'm either very sweet or very bad in pictures, there seems to be no in-between."

"I'm grateful to the [Warner Bros.] studio. They gave me a buildup I couldn't have gotten if I hadn't been under contract. I admit I worked hard. I did around eight pictures in one year. I scarcely had time to get married. I worked up until 7:30 on Strangers on a Train the night we were flying to Las Vegas to get married. That was a Saturday night, and I had to be back at work at 9:30 Monday morning. But I was lucky to have made all those pictures. I got good experience. Then I was off the screen for two years while raising a family. It was fortunate that I had that backlog of pictures."

"Acting is my life. The profession can break my heart. In fact, it already has several times. But I love it."

"I wanted to really be sure that the play never became a play about how to grieve…And in order to accomplish that I needed the play to remain in this time of confusion and chaos."

"I remember feeling that if I don’t express this somehow, I’ll despair, I’ll go mad. Looking back, part of it was about trying to impose some kind of order in a process that was decidedly chaotic. Because of my profession, I tend to understand the world in words, in sequences of events. What I saw later was that I was trying to document as clearly as possible an emotional journey. And it felt important at the time that I remember it in its entirety and its complexity."

"We’re not allowed in an open way, in a public way, to talk about our grief and our experiences, our challenges, or our failures, which is what I tried to do."

"There’s a legend in my family about my great-grandmother, who lived through the Cuban War of Independence and the Spanish-American War. The Spanish came to take over her farm when she was 16 years old and sent her family to internment camps. The legend is that my great-grandmother refused to go; she took her pet pig under her arms and walked up into the mountain to join the rebels. That’s as much of the story as I could ever get from anyone. I always had an image of this young woman finding a way to survive a terrible war. The play that I eventually wrote is not her story, but it’s certainly infused with her spirit…"

"Vegetarianism is a really important part of what we need to do to help the environment. The meat industry is really toxic to the environment. The cattle industry — besides the fact that there's a lot of cruel things happening — the manure is extremely toxic. We just need to pull back as a culture as much as we can."

"I became a vegetarian at 15. I was never a big meat eater — I was always picky. I was raised in a kosher home, and if you're raised with a food restriction, it's not that difficult to have another kind of food restriction. … At some point, I had a dream that I was eating chicken. But in the dream, I understood that it was actually miniature human legs and arms. My brain was connecting muscle and bone to another animal. Once I had made that connection, it just wasn't something I wanted to eat."

"I know people who just absolutely everyday of their life work for change. … The animal rights people. THOSE are my people. … You always hear about the Farmer in the Dell and how he loves his animals, but we’re not educated. And now it’s all coming out and people are starting to finally get educated about it. is rescuing all these animals … I mean not one animal had a good life before they got here."

"When it's going well, stand-up is the best thing in the world, but when it's not, it feels like all your toes are being pulled off one by one."

"How can I believably be a dumb blonde. I'm the furthest thing from it. I am intelligent. I don't mean I have a great IQ. I just mean there's always an intelligence present in what I do."

"I don't like to be my own audience, I find that being my own audience, being in the audience, makes me self-conscious, basically. So I tune in sometimes, with the sound off, to check it out and I back up to it. In the future I will look at it when some time has passed."

"I can't even really tell a joke. I find being funny very hard work. I am always asked about it and I feel guilty saying that, but it's the truth. I love my work but it ain't easy."

"Me, as myself, I don't think I'm particularly funny. But I've noticed that people in my life always have found me amusing. Which, when I was little, really bothered me."

"Mel is sensual with me. He treats me like an uncle - a dirty uncle. He's an earthy man and very moral underneath. He has traditional values."

"What's wrong with musicals now is all the gifted men who've died of AIDS—who would otherwise be here today creating great theater."

"Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex."

"She is one of the most talented people that ever lived. I mean, either in stand-up comedy, or acting, or whatever you want, you can't beat Madeline Kahn."

"I had a very traditional background. My parents are neat people. I'm lucky to have been raised in the most beautiful place -- Amherst, Massachusetts, state of my heart. I'm more patriotic to Massachusetts than to almost any place."

"Tall, sandy blonde, with sort of blue eyes, skinny in places, fat in others. An average gal."

"Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan."

"It is better to have a relationship with someone who cheats on you than with someone who does not flush the toilet."

"I spent the first fourteen years of my life convinced that my looks were hideous. Adolescence is painful for everyone, I know, but mine was plain weird."

"I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment. My father, when very young, was the first American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. He now teaches Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University and is regarded as this country's foremost authority on Buddhism. When the Dalai Lama comes to America, it's my father who is his host. When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, not really. But it's more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don't practice or preach it, however. But Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them."

"I have learned, I am not a child and I have learned that… when I’ve spoken in anger, I usually regret the way I express myself. So I’ve been waiting to feel less angry. And when I’m ready, I’ll say what I have to say."

"Because of [my father Robert Thurman, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk], I often get asked if I'm a Buddhist. I always say no, because I have such respect for the rigor of being a practicing religious person. I'm an actress and a mom, and I probably don't have enough of an active spiritual life. And I don't know why people run around calling themselves by the names of religions when they don't actually practice them."

"When I'm shooting, I just try to make sure I wouldn't be embarrassed of it later, because in Watertown, you don't get away with anything."

"It's high school, man. They compare it to prison in the movie."

"To be honest, I haven't even seen the film yet. Tobey, if you're reading this, I apologize."

"When I saw Analyze This, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him. He's great. I loved Shakespeare in Love, too, and thought the whole cast in that was amazing."

"I'm kind of nocturnal. I love Conan. He's the bomb. I love Howard Stern when he's being good. I'm dying to get on that show. I also watch Ally McBeal, it's cool and smart. I've always loved The Simpsons. They are such a funky family."

"I've been getting fan mail from maximum security penitentiaries, and Death Row. What are the authorities thinking of in playing a show with young teenage girls to Death Row inmates? They write everything — disgusting things that you don't even want to know about. And they send me pictures — "Oh, here's a picture of me before I was incarcerated!" — and there's some guy sat on the sofa with a bottle of beer and a moustache, and a big gut. It's so creepy. Way more creepy than Buffy."

"Sometimes it feels like you’re losing, but even when you’re losing, you’re getting something."

"It’s still a pretty sexist world out there and someone’s got to stand up and say something."

"Rhymes with push-koo; I always say it sounds like a breakfast cereal."

"I'd like to go back to Buffy, but I've been in a coma, I've jumped off a building, I've been in prison - how many other ways can they bring me back? But those guys are geniuses, so who knows?"