Top 35 Carrie Preston Quotes

I don’t like lying around on the beach. I like to be busy.

Before I do episodes of ‘The Good Wife,’ I talk to the director and say, ‘I’m trusting you to let me know if it’s too much! I won’t be offended.’ So I put myself in their hands, and most of the time they let me do my thing, but sometimes they’ll say, ‘Let’s try this.’

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer sunscreen makes me feel like I’m getting supersonic protection because I am so, so pale and need all the help I can get!

I do like to get inspired by and support any female leads.

I have a great amount of respect for what a manicurist does – now, when I go and get my own nails done at a nail salon, I have a lot of respect for what they’re doing. Especially any kind of intricate work that they’re doing is… it’s a real art form.

When you’re auditioning, hold on loosely. Work hard on it at home, like you always do. But when you’re in the room, let a choice happen to you rather than forcing a choice that’s not ready to come. You’ll surprise yourself and, hopefully, the people in the room.

I would love to be able to have a brain that just captures everything.

I have a recurring role on ‘Person of Interest,’ which is my husband’s show. I play the love of his life. It was really fun to do that.

I owe so much to Shakespeare. Nothing is more humbling and more exhilarating than taking ahold of those sacred words and riding them like a wave.

I do play a lot of Southerners because I grew up in the South, but they’re still diverse.

I’m always just drawn to those roles that present one way and have many other things going on underneath. It’s just more fun to play as an actor.

I use the dictionary all the time when I’m reading or working on scripts.

‘The Good Wife’ was definitely the biggest surprise and gift that I’ve had in a long time, and that did come out of some other work that I had done. That whole adage of ‘work begets work’ actually worked in that case – it was at the very end of their first season that my character was first introduced.

Auditioning is so different than doing the work in some ways. It’s very much about solving the scene, I think, and coming in with a strong take, but not having it set in stone.

‘Emeril’ came on the air right when a new president of NBC was taking over, and there was just a big shift going on. And then 9/11 happened, and that really pretty much killed it, because the show was already having a hard time finding an audience. I don’t regret it. I had a really good time.

I like being able to marry the actor and the technician inside of me. It’s really fulfilling. It exercises all of my creative muscles.

I tend to play every color in the Southern rainbow, and the challenge is to make each character different so I’m not doing any generic ‘Southern acting.’

It’s always fun to pass on what I’ve learned to the younger people.

I did a lot of multi-cam shows when I first started coming out to L.A.

A lot of people probably don’t realize how difficult it is to stick to that lawyer speak when you’re not a lawyer. I see everyone on ‘The Good Wife’ – everyone, people who have been there since day one – struggling with that language because it is just not how people talk.

Everyone thinks they went to high school with me. I take it as a compliment that I look different in every role.

Remain true to yourself while practicing this business of being an actor. And it is a business.

Nobody wants to be a bad parent.

The heroines in ‘That’s What She Said’ are flawed, messy, damaged, hilarious and culpable and not really concerned about being acceptable to the audience in any traditional sense, which for me is what makes them all the more gorgeous. And the fearless truth of that is what makes it funny.

I think that in order for anything to work on television, you have to have conflict. Nothing can be too happy or it’s boring. People don’t want to watch that – they want to watch things that are exciting and dangerous and sexy and have tension.

I think it’s important to have conversation about things instead of shutting things down.

I watch a lot of television. I love doing it, obviously, but I really love watching it.

I grew up in Georgia, and I started acting in plays when I was like eight years old, and I always memorized everyone’s parts, not just my own, and I always memorized everyone’s blocking. Whenever anyone wasn’t there, I would always jump in. I was very hands-on.

Back in 2004, Kellie Overbey handed me her play ‘Girl Talk’ to read. I fell in love with her brutally delicious humor and the fearlessly deft way in which she drew her characters. They jumped off the page and begged me to give them a space in which to stomp around.

By the time I was twelve, I had started my own theater company and was doing plays in the backyard and the front yard and all over the neighborhood, so, you know, I was definitely a lifer even back when I was 10.

I got my first big paycheck for ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’ This was in the days when you actually did get paid to have a supporting role. It just doesn’t happen like that anymore, but this was in the ’90s. It was the golden age!

We women often gauge our own self-worth by the quality of our interactions with our lovers. And often these interactions are interpreted for, described for, processed by our women friends. Relationships are the conduits through which flows our connection with each other.

Alan Cumming is such an amazing performer and person.

It’s OK to cut your hair or color it because it makes you stand out and helps with your brand.

When you’re doing a play that’s fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV.