Words matter. These are the best Mary Steenburgen Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Whenever we start a new TV series, there’s also a lot of question marks, and part of that is finding who you are.
I couldn’t imagine trying anything else besides acting. But I didn’t know that to make it meant I’d be on a movie screen.
I was this person with this weird last name from New York that no one had ever heard of. But my screen test I guess, according to him, was the best. So I got the part, which was incredible.
I’m kind of a laugh junkie. It’s what I appreciate in life, because life is rich and sometimes it’s hard, and I really, really love to laugh and gravitate towards people who make me laugh.
‘Justified’ had such dead-on beautiful scripts that you didn’t want to mess with it.
The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns – I love them.
I was excited to turn 60.
I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.
I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.
Ultimately, there are only two emotions: love and fear. And pretty much anything else you want to name can be broken down into one of those.
I’m not saying it’s easy, and it’s definitely harder for women. Because there is definitely a double standard about gorgeous older men, and it’s different for older women.
A period piece is a great opportunity for an actress. I love acting because I love to pretend, and when you’re doing a period piece, then even the time you’re in is pretend, so there’s that much more to play with.
I learned so much about life and other human beings – then about myself.
‘Last Man On Earth,’ I have to say, is a love for me. I mean, a true passion. To people who haven’t watched it or who’ve watched a little and thought, ‘Ah, I don’t know where this is going,’ or whatever, I urge them to check it out again.
I don’t worry when I go away for a while. I think there is a place for me. It may not be at the top of the heap. But that doesn’t bother me, either. I think I will always be able to get work – which is the only thing I have ever really been interested in.
I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.
Anytime I had a date, it was at the Sadie Hawkins Day dance.
Anything to do with the South resonates with me, because I’m Southern.
I’m a chameleon when it comes to languages.
New York had this wild beat that anybody could dance to. It was very nurturing to young people.
There’s a style to doing period pieces, and you can’t do a Western without understanding ‘My Darling Clementine.’
‘Step Brothers’ is probably the film the most people who approach me want to talk about.
When I was going through sad times, I’d watch ‘Cheers’ at the end of the day to make me feel better.
It’s usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.
There’s something inside of me that just connects or doesn’t connect with the project.
What a mother I am. I can’t even make popcorn.
I actually believed if I behaved myself and if I made straight A’s and if I was good enough, I could save my dad’s life. And every single time he had a heart attack, I knew what I had done that caused it.
I don’t know how I could plan my career.
We tell our kids to try for what they want. We cheer them on. But at some point, we stop doing this for ourselves. We shouldn’t be so quick to close doors.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a movie that’s as strange and unpredictable and hilarious and wonderful as the stuff we’re doing on ‘The Last Man on Earth.’ It’s jaw-dropping every week when I get a script, because it goes to such strange places.
My mother was a gorgeous person with no vanity, but she was a really good soul.
Reading is how I became an actor because I didn’t grow up in a house where there was an awareness of film or theater. I also grew up in a house full of teachers, so reading was big in our world.
There’s just a total boatload of crazy that goes with singing live for the first time when you’re 60 years old.
I had a sense of mortality since I was a little girl, which has to do with my father, who nearly died eight times in my childhood. He had eight heart attacks.
The accordion came from just having a desire to play music. Somehow, I have slowly taught myself.
There’s a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.
‘Step Brothers’ was like a reward for going through my whole career and somehow surviving.
You’ve never seen anything until you’ve seen David Mamet be an Edwardian lady. He always conveys what he means, but he’s so… masculine.
I’ve found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it’s percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it.
Wii on Nintendo is amazing.
There’s a certain freedom that comes when people don’t expect you to be sexy.
I feel like I’m attracted to characters who have one foot firmly planted on the ground. And their heads up in the clouds somewhere. Practical dreamers. They try to impress you that they’ve got this whole thing figured out, but there’s more going on inside their heads than you might imagine.
I’ve had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote ‘Sugar’ and ‘Honey’ at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.
I’m not a great horse person, but I love horses, and I love all of it. The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns – I love them.
There’s just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.
It’s very easy to approach a character like that – a so-called strong woman who overcomes the odds – and give a one-note performance, playing that strength alone. Strength is only one thing a person has.
I have never been able to sing in the shower, much less in front of anybody.
I’m a late bloomer.
I would say that the things that have really left a mark on me have more to do with my family and my children’s lives rather than a film role.
As an actor, you’re always looking for, what do I get to do? It’s not just what do I say, but what do I do, too.
I wasn’t making any money, but I didn’t feel unsuccessful because of that. You can do that in New York but not in Hollywood. In Hollywood, it is how much money you make.
I have never had any success in planning my life, really.
There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.
I wish sometimes people wouldn’t underestimate me. But it’s a fleeting wish. It’s not where I live.
I love to paint. And I have another profession – an interior design business.
I learned not to care what other people think.
I loved Westerns for different reasons as an adult. It is not only our only native brand of storytelling – the only one that’s not influenced by Europeans and not something that’s done better by the French – but I also love the sensuality of the Western. The sights, sounds, and smell of a Western are very exciting.
I’d already made the decision before I’d even read it-just because it was John Sayles. Then when I read it, the themes were actually themes that have been a big part of my life.
I think the secret to what Jim Henson did, ultimately, is that he understood how to cut through to the… I know this sounds corny… but the child inside of you.
Christopher Lloyd was actually the first person – or certainly one of the first few – who ever spoke to me on film.
If you want to grow up and do what I do for a living – be an actress – my advice to you is read as much as you can.
The time that Ted and I spend talking about our careers is almost infinitesimally small. We mostly talk about our kids and our grandkids. I think we talk about our careers if something funny happened at work. We’re very childlike in many ways.
I wrote my first song when I was 54 years old.
I had two wonderful teachers: Sanford Melsner and Fred Kareman.
I know that’s why I became an actress. In my dream world, I could get mad and scream and yell, and if somebody died, they got up again. In real life, I didn’t dare try it.
I used to think I was going to die wise, and now, the one wisdom I have is I know very little.
As an actress, my best tools are my emotions and expressions.
Will Forte is such a nice, extraordinarily creative human being. Utterly fearless.
I don’t consider myself much of a singer. I’m a writer first.
I did ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ at the same time. It’s kind of wonderful to do it that way, because you get very hyper-focused.