When the Beatles came in, I really concentrated on making a lot of movies. Those beach films that we did were a lot fun. They hit with an audience that related to what we were trying to do on the screen. That kept me going all through that Beatle period.
The less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen.
I really want to be the black Tina Fey, where I just am able to produce my own content and produce other content for other minority filmmakers and put their voices on screen and basically be able to have free range to produce.
You always carry a character when you come on screen.
I think there is a very quiet power in things that are not on screen.
I don’t play long parts. They must be short parts, but they’ve got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I’m on the screen, and people will remember the character after they’ve seen the film.
The reason I use ed is that I don’t want to lose what’s on the screen.
It’s a very difficult thing for people to accept, seeing women act out anger on the screen. We’re more accustomed to seeing men expressing rage and women crying.
I know I’m old-fashioned, but there’s just something about the act of looking at books versus taking in information on a screen, which is so one-dimensional. There’s a sense of ownership that you have with books, a physical connection.
I was so grateful to have made ‘Into the Wild’ before I made ‘Speed Racer’ because on ‘Speed Racer’ I was indoors every single day, every single scene, on a green screen. Some of the time, just to pass the time, I would think back to climbing mountains in Alaska. That really helped me.
If I had the opportunity to buy the latest movie that’s out that month and watch it on the comfort of my big screen TV, I would pay for that.
Audiences just naturally hate me on screen. I could play a role in a tuxedo, and people would think I was rotten. You can do much more with a villain part.
I hate watching myself on screen! I absolutely hate it, it’s so hard to watch. I can see myself in magazines, but watching on TV or movies is like, ‘Ugh.’
I’d rather live my life off screen and give only a certain amount of energy to the work.
I have come close to producing films. But generally by the time they hit the screen, there’s about 50 people with producer credits, so what’s the point. I usually find scripts I like with no money attached and take them to producers that I know and try to raise finance.
There’s no set rule, but when you look at the script, you start thinking about this person and how to create this human being on screen. You dig deeper into a script.
There certainly is such a thing as screen chemistry, although I don’t believe you find it frequently.
There’s something about the impact of a big screen that means something to me, even though I realize almost every film is fated to be seen for a year in theaters, and then forever after on television.
It’s very tricky to throw a morally flexible character onto the screen and have an audience empathize. It’s always an exercise in restraint.
If you weren’t on Chris Economaki’s radar screen, you probably weren’t on anybody’s.
I’ve worked with multiple directors throughout the ‘Saw’ series with a lot of conversations as they bring their particular installment to the screen. If I’ve been able to do anything throughout the course of these films, it’s been to help shape dialogue and to try to make things as delicate and as intelligent as I can.
You’d see those movie stars on the screen, and say, ‘I want to be that guy.’
I think, as an actress, whether you want to or not, whether you’re ready for it or not, people are going to look at what you’re doing, and they are going to look up to you, and it’s not even really about you; it’s who you portray on the screen.
You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true. And yet, by the time this idea passes through the different filters of your mind, and into your hand, and onto the page or computer screen – it becomes distorted, and it’s been diminished.
Acting must be scaled down for the screen. A drawing room is a lot smaller than a theatre auditorium.
I have a very healthy relationship to my work, and I find that if a scene is working, no matter how intense it is, you have the catharsis on screen, and you can let it go. I think it’s, if at the end of the day you feel like you haven’t cracked it, that’s when you go home and it’s more difficult to switch off.
My dad is an art director for BBC TV shows, and my mum does screen printing workshops. Both of my parents played instruments, too, and my mum used to have crazy house parties when me and my brother were young – dub and garage would be banging through my house.
When you feel a connection, a gut connection, a heart connection, it’s a very special thing. What’s familiar to everyone is watching people falling in love; it doesn’t happen on screen that often. People fall in lust, then they’re suddenly together.
It’s tough. It’s very tricky to throw a morally flexible character onto the screen and have an audience empathize. It’s always an exercise in restraint.
I may wear sizzling costumes on screen or on the ramp, but back home, I love to be in my torn jeans and sneakers.
With comedy it’s all about timing and presence on screen, as the words are there but you have to say them right and the right timing.
My favorite thing to do as a kid was pretend I was in the opening credits of a sitcom. As the theme song would play, I’d look up at the imaginary camera and smile as my name would flash on the screen.
I think that when a person is insecure about who they are or who they want to be, then it translates on screen, and the choices they make are all about perception.
My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression.
My favorite on screen moments are when you are really there and you know you’re creating something. That’s so exciting… it’s why you come to work.
I’m sure that people must say about me, on the screen, ‘Good gracious, is Jeanette MacDonald going to take off her clothes – again?
I think that I’ve been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I’ve spent so much time in front of a green screen.
It has been great portraying Gollum, but it will be great to see my face on screen for a change.
I put a lot of time and energy and thought behind what I do and the characters that I create, and I don’t want to do anything peripheral that is going to make an audience see me up there on the screen rather than who I’m playing.
The mass audience doesn’t want to see you if you aren’t perfect. If you don’t look a certain way, if you don’t have big pecs and great skin and the perfect eyes. And it’s unfortunate, because kids are growing up with body image dysmorphia because not everyone is represented on the screen.
Working on a green screen set, yeah, it’s almost like reading from a novel, taking those black words and creating a world around you.
It seemed like a wonderful honor to have the Film Society of Lincoln Center screen ‘The Films of Raquel Welch.’ It shows a lot of a variety in what they’ve chosen; it kind of runs the gamut of my film career.
You could name the great stars of the silent screen who were finished; the great directors gone; the great title writers who were washed up. But remember this, as long as you live: the producers didn’t lose a man. They all made the switch. That’s where the great talent is.
I know for me like I have a reputation of being kind of tough, I have a reputation of also being the girl next door, kind of sweet but I have standards and my thing is, it’s me on that screen and I don’t have control over everything in this and I’m grateful and thankful.
I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn’t what’s on the screen. It’s what you have to do to raise the money.
That’s a very odd notion because it involves seeing money up there on the screen – if something cost $5 million to make, they want to see that $5 million up there.
If in my twenties I’d gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.
I was asked to go to Cannes to present Amores Perros. And little did I know that this film would be huge. I saw it for the first time in Cannes, and it was the first time I’d seen myself on such a big screen. And it had a huge impact on me – it was the strangest feeling.
I never really saw my dad as entertained as when he was just completely blown away by somebody on the television screen or at the movies. I think that’s the real reason that I went into acting.
I can’t watch myself on screen without dying a little bit inside. And there are lots of moments when I think, ‘What am I doing as an actor? I can’t act!’
Who you seen on screen shapes who you are.
I have written my own screen version of Pern, but had no buyers yet.
With screenplays and teleplays, they are mapped, really, in the blueprint of a finished product, which is something you’re going to watch on a screen. But a book is an end to itself, really.
I’m from a generation of fantastic actresses. It’s a big pool of really wonderful actresses, and so many of them we never even get to see on the screen anymore.
