actresses-from-washington-d-c

"A woman past forty should make up her mind to be young, not her face."

"It wasn't difficult to retire. I have friends who have a family life and do their art and make it work. I realized I couldn't give myself to both, and I really wanted to make a life with my husband, so that's what I did."

"Starting out as a dancer gave me an aspect of mindfulness that I didn’t even realise that I was getting…because to dance is to be aware of every piece of your body while you’re moving. It’s like a meditation unto itself."

"Before you go to bed, think of three things that went well today. I don’t care if it’s a little crazy thing – it doesn’t matter…Take some music you love and if you can’t dance, go do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. Get yourself all cheered up."

"Women were my obvious focus…because it is not always easy having power and being female…That’s the way it was. It wasn’t that all men were terrible or that the situation was unbearable. It was a cultural problem."

"My sense of liberation and the freedom to speak the way I want to and to feel solid in my shoes was getting stronger and stronger. That’s what helps me move through other people’s perceptions of how I should or should not be liberated. I would never listen to those rules. Don’t tell me I can’t do that. Watch me. Don’t tell me I can’t direct this movie. Watch me…"

"I believe you have to start with a craft; you don’t just start with a dream. You’ve got to put a lot of work in. If you want to pursue acting, then you go to acting class. If you want to be a dancer, then you learn to dance, which is what I did. If you want to be a ventriloquist or join the circus … When you’re young, you start looking at what you want to do—not just who you want to be, but what you want to do. And I think the tenacity to say, “I’m going to perfect that,” is the beginning of a work ethic..."

"We kind of look at it as the Henson Company's little Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings franchise. It truly has the ability to be explored in different geographical parts of that world, or different time periods of that world, and it's been so fun to expand the canon of The Dark Crystal. Now that we've got the ball rolling on that, it feels like that could continue indefinitely."

"For me, watching his performances of Aughra and the Chamberlain is incredible and I'm so moved by how he infused life into those characters. That's pure talent to really take an inanimate object and give it life so believably. It's still the core asset of this film."

"I think people, whether they are studied in puppetry or not, are going to love the artistic tapestry that’s up there. Some of the tiniest details in The Dark Crystal like when the Chamberlain’s eyelid starts to twitch, just make it feel so much more real, so much more alive."

"What’s gonna happen to us, you know centuries from now? We don’t know. We just kind of have to live our daily lives and win the daily battle. We think this is a really hopeful and inspiring story about heroes who, when faced with a really scary and mysterious threat—which is what the Skeksis are doing to them and threatening their very life essence—you know, they manage to pull together and fight as a team. You kind of don’t expect gelfling—if you know the original film—you don’t expect gelfling to have that kind of gumption. You don’t even know that they have a fight in them, but they do. And we learn that they do in the series."

"We took that as our jumping off point for the whole series. What was that culture? What was lost? What was that beautiful Gelfling civilization?"

"We're so pleased that that is pure puppetry. If you take the puppeteers out, they're still being moved by the puppeteers. We'll have a very simple scene of a character that's doing a normal gesture, and that's many puppeteers to accomplish that."

"The prep period for The Dark Crystal was really long, it was literally years because they had the world and the creatures developed before they ever had a firm storyline. The script for The Dark Crystal actually fell in place later than anything else and some of it was only during post-production."

"They just couldn't get their head around the idea that the person who was doing The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie, things that were so light and joyful, that he himself would want to deviate from what he had been doing. It was really surprising to people and they expressed a lot of doubt about it. Then, the film did pretty well commercially and it also did very well internationally. This story has so many universal qualities such as good and evil, the characters are not American and they're not from any place in particular and so it worked around the world."

"People talk about how look and feel of The Dark Crystal is so much more real than CGI but they also had no choice because there was no computer animation when The Dark Crystal was made. There were some optical effects, there were some composites that were hand done in the lab but there were no computer effects."

"[I]t's basically the screenplay adaptation so that is the sequel to The Dark Crystal. We thought, 'Why should we let this story that we thought up not get seen by the public?' We just went a different way with it."

"I don’t think a living being should suffer for the sake of fashion, period. End of story. When I realized what went into—not just, we’re not just even talking about a full-length fur coat, I’m talking about just the fur on your gloves or on your jacket or even—what goes into making that little piece of fur ripped my heart out!! And as humans, we have control. What if someone said, ‘Black skin is the new fur’?"

"You don’t have to kill an animal because you want to be hot and fly. It’s not the 16th century anymore. We’ve got central heating for God’s sake. And you can get a fake fur coat. I have one. It’s fabulous."

"Dogs, to me, are like children. They are the closest thing to God. They are so pure in their love, and all they do is aim to please."

"Veganism started off as a willpower challenge for me from vegetarianism. … I just walked into year three, so I'm still a brand-new vegan, but I've learned so much … and it's done wonders for my entire life. Some of the changes that I've experienced being vegan: I'm no longer anemic. … I don't get sick! And my skin is clear. I lost 30 pounds. … Everything in my life has benefited me just eating natural foods, and the more information about the truths and the harsh realities of treatment of animals as well as the process of manufacturing food or meat products—including seafood, including the dairy industry, which I was oblivious to being a vegetarian—prompted me to continue this journey, which I'm very proud of, but it's impossible to turn back, because I no longer see product—I see process."

"Stardom can be a gilded slavery."

"The truth [is] that there is only one terminal dignity — love. And the story of love is not important — what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity."

"One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it."

"Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it."

"An actress always knows when she’s hit it and mostly you haven’t; but once or twice I think I hit it right, so maybe that’s good enough for one life."

"People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach "retirement" age seem very admirable to me."

"If you rest, you rust."

"Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness."

"We are indeed a strange lot! There are times we doubt that we have any emotions we can honestly call our own. I have approached every dynamic scene change in my life the same way. When I married Charlie MacArthur, I sat down and wondered how I could play the best wife that ever was.... My love for him was the truest thing in my life; but it was still important that I love him with proper effect, that I act loving him with great style, that I achieve the ultimate in wifedom."

"The theatre demanded of its members stamina, good digestion, the ability to adjust, and a strong sense of humor. There was no discomfort an actor didn’t learn to endure. To survive, we had to be horses and we were."

"Actors work and slave — and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end."

"The flattering, if arbitrary, label, First Lady of the Theatre, takes its toll. The demands are great, not only in energy but eventually in dramatic focus. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a star to occupy an inch of space without bursting seams, cramping everyone else’s style and unbalancing a play. No matter how self-effacing a famous player may be, he makes an entrance as a casual neighbor and the audience interest shifts to the house next door."

"The old-fashioned idea that the simple piling up of experiences, one on top of another, can make you an artist, is, of course, so much rubbish. If acting were just a matter of experience, then any busy harlot could make Garbo’s Camille pale."

"Egocentrics are attracted to the inept. It gives them one more excuse for patting themselves on the back."

"Marriage is like a war. There are moments of chivalry and gallantry that attend the victorious advances and strategic retreats, the birth or death of children, the momentary conquest of loneliness, the sacrifice that ennobles him who makes it. But mostly there are the long dull sieges, the waiting, the terror and boredom. Women understand this better than men; they are better able to survive attrition."

"The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life."

"The good die young — but not always. The wicked prevail — but not consistently. I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre. O'Neil's dramas are slapstick farces, Albee's riddles are simple explanations, Pinter's threatening and threatened anti-heroes are innocent babes — next to life and the living. I cry out for order and find it only in art."

"I just don't feel the need to swallow all the time, I only do it because I have to, because, like, saliva's gross or something, but I don't see it that way. It's just spit, what's the big deal? I really don't care."

"No, I don't think they're obsessive, they're just dedicated."

"I love the shock factors and that Michelle is just OK with every aspect of herself, especially the sexual side."

"Last night Alexis got his script for Angel. I was like, "Oh, I would have been getting a Buffy script right now.""

"My sense of humor is the raunchier, inappropriate kind. It's so much funnier than the quirky stuff."

"I'm still figuring out who I am. But at least I know what I want."

"I have a real problem giving up that kind of control. You know, my mother helps me."

"Yeah, I have giant breasts — in a bra. It's so disconcerting — there are so many women now with fake breasts that that's the standard; that's what you're supposed to look like. But real boobs don't look like that, and a lot of working out won't make them look like that."

"I have very little patience for people who whine and complain about life not being fair. It's just the risk of life. The only thing to do is live as much as you can and as best you can, and just sort of swing it from there."

"I do think you've got to fight a lot of the time to be respected in business, in relationships, in life. I learned that early in my career."

"I think people don't expect a lot from me. I'm trying to think at what age I noticed it was more about how I looked and less about what I do, but to me that was never the interesting part about me. I had nothing to do with my looks."

"I lived in a town called New Canaan, which is just outside of Connecticut, where they are far too snobby to even mention celebrities. Many American towns are famous for things like, "See the World's Largest Ball of String!" I think my town's would probably have to be "Most Pretentious People"."