Top 40 Vera Farmiga Quotes

I look for struggle in the roles I choose – struggle and perseverance.

I’ve never graced the cover of a fashion magazine.

Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul.

I don’t necessarily need Hollywood.

I love Saturday nights with my best friend and a big bowl of pasta, wanting a good scare, something that will say, ‘Listen, your life is not as bad as this. Your life can be so much worse.’

I’ve always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it’s not the lines you say that are important – it’s what exists between the lines. What I’m compelled by most is that transparency of thought, what is left unspoken.

The limelight is a tricky place, because you can’t believe what’s going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated.

Do I pray? Yes. Prayer is very important to me.

I’ve played a lot of mothers in my movies.

I’ve never felt the breath of God – you can take that statement literally or metaphorically – more than when I was yearning for a personal, intimate connection to something bigger than me.

Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I’ve ever been privy to as an actress.

The Ukrainian community is tight-knit by nature.

I think I always try to be accommodating and open and available and proving for my director. I love to give as many takes as they want. I love to give them as many choices as they want.

You ought to have a perspective when you’re making a film.

I’m from the school of, ‘if you want more, you have to require more from yourself.’

In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.

Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.

Faith is important to me.

Offers come all the time, but I’m pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I’m just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.

Am I ambitious? I used to be afraid of that word but now I think ambition is a good thing.

I have tender, romantic associations with upstate New York.

I’m just someone who marvels at God.

It’s a very different thing, religion and faith. Religion is man-made, it’s man-regulated. And faith, you can define God as you wish. But I think they’re two different things.

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them: my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a lover, as a daughter.

My only real advice to Oscar nominees is, ‘If you haven’t actually seen a competitor’s film, don’t fib and say you have and blow smoke up their wahooziewhatsits.’ Always best to be frank and tell them the truth.

I can’t get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.

I didn’t grow up watching film but as a Ukrainian-American, music and stories and dance are crucial.

There’s no wrong way to experience a film.

I just can’t feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don’t understand her and want to understand her.

It’s true: I don’t remember what life was like before parenthood.

I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like ‘Down to the Bone,’ you have the opportunity to be of service.

I think maybe I was a shepherdess in a past life.

I think all religions can agree on certain definitions of God and concepts of God, like God being the god of love, the great ‘I am’ energy.

There really are three types of ‘religious’ movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.

We’re all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction and hatred and anxiety, it’s the antithesis I think of what religion was designed to do.

I, for one, am tired of seeing movies about men damaging each other.

I have the best husband a wife could possibly have. He’s the best father my children could have.

I don’t have a caustic sense of humor. What I find funny, that humor comes from a much gentler place.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.