Actors Gallery

The best in the business... greatest acting machines... class, beauty with substance. Well, here are my most favorites of all time.

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~ Michelle Pfeiffer ~ On Michelle Rob Reiner (director): Frankly, I think Michelle is so beautiful, a lot of people can't see past that. But she can literally do anything. She's a thoroughbred -- the Rolls Royce of actors. Martin Scorsese (director): Michelle is the best we have in the business. Garry Marshall (director): She's an actress of unlimited range. Michelle has no goddess time. Except when she's on the screen. And then she's home. I've worked with a lot of stars, and she's different. She doesn't get obsessed with hair and makeup. She's not a happy girl on the set--she's very prepared, very serious. Jonathan Kaplan (director): She's someone who goes on instinct and if you tell her she can't do something, she'll want to do it twice as much. George Miller: Of all the screen tests I've given, the two I most remember are Mel Gibson's for Mad Max and Michelle's for Witches. The minute the studio people saw her test, they were scrambling all over themselves to say they'd thought of her first. Steve Kloves: Michelle has something very rare on the screen, and that's mystery. At the same time there's a raw quality that comes through in her performances. It's a unique combination. Jessie Nelson (director): Michelle is a very complex person. She's both optimistic and pessimistic. She has tremendous joy and innocence, but she sees through things quickly and doesn't take any bull. Cher: I won't diminish her by trying to explain her. That would be like putting pins in a butterfly to slow it down so people could get a better look. Bruce Willis: When you talk about the great screen goddesses of all time, you gotta talk about Michelle Pfeiffer. And, you know what? She turned out to be really cool. Sean Penn: Michelle is seamless, as complete an acting partner as I ever wanted. There wasn't one moment I didn't like working with her, and that never happens. By Michelle "I don't think you can articulate the love you have for your children. It's something of a surprise, how deep your love runs for a child." "If I could say that any one thing is the key to my success, it's my ability to survive anything. I want to instill that strength in my children, in a healthy, nurturing way." "I want them to be fighters, and I want them to be survivors as well. I want them to have something to believe in, and I want them to fight for what they believe in. I want them to stay true to themselves, because if you do stay true to yourself, you can weather a lot." "You can't know what fame is like until it hits you. It's a big package. I think I've gotten more graceful at it as I've gotten older, but for me to try to be anything other than what I am, I would have come off looking really silly. Like a little girl in her mother's dress. Stardom looks right on some people. It wouldn't on me." "I do worry about my kids being children of famous parents, growing up in an elitist environment. I think it could be very damaging to them. I can protect them until they're eighteen, but if they've been so protected all their lives, how are they going to function? And part of being ambitious and learning how to take care of yourself comes from being a bit deprived. How do I give them that? How do I give them the same values without the struggle?" "So this is the year of the woman. Well, yes, it's actually been a good year for women. Demi Moore was sold to Robert Redford for $1 million. Uma Thurman went to Mr De Niro for and just three years ago Richard Gere bought Julia Roberts for -what was it- ? I'd say that was real progress. Fortunately our values as individuals and women are not determined by our cultures but by ourselves. I know that I am here because many of you have been here before me creating my opportunity." [acceptance speech at the 17th Annual Women In Film Luncheon] "I'm not real social. It's not my strong point. I tend to have a very small group of people I socialise with. I'm very guarded. It takes me a long time to get loose with people, to allow myself to open up to them, but once I do, I'm really friends for life with them." "I'm a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad -- and other people, too. At the same time, I think that's one of the reasons I'm successful. Because I really care about what I do." "I find the less you focus on your flaws, the better off you are. Be yourself, and be glad." "I'm not a real religious person. But I try to be moral. And I do not think my need to try to do what's right interferes a lot with my ability to just... live." "You know, I look like a duck. I just do. And I'm not the only person who thinks that. It's the way my mouth sort of curls up or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the Duck." "Just standing around looking beautiful is so boring, really boring, so boring." "The thing that I've always been good at in different stages of my life is being able to recognize where the opportunity was and move forward incrementally. Ultimately, my goal was to have control over my life and have freedom of choice. " "In the beginning, you have very limited choices as an actor, but I knew even then what I didn't want, and I didn't want to end up like Marilyn Monroe. She was tortured by many things in her life, but I think she was tortured most by the fact that she wasn't taken seriously as an actress." "I'm my own worst critic, and I'm beyond pleasing." "A person's looks are a double-edged sword. Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it works against you." "I can come across as rather _ uh, icy," Pfeiffer says. "It's because I'm shy," she adds with a smile.	Meryl Streep "You have to be interested and mystified by the other person's feelings and be very, very curious about the person's heart. Not just the person you are portraying, but the person you're communicating with and the one that's unseen, the audience. I always think that if I've made a connection with my character, and I've gotten into her heart, then they can get into yours. I always think about that invisible connection among us all, what we have in common, as opposed to what divides us." "Integrate what you believe into every single area of your life." "Success is often provided by the exception to the Rules for Success. People who have broken through color and gender lines, class and cultural bias, have done so despite an array of reasons as to why they shouldn't be able to do so. In this way, success may ultimately have more to do with your own personality, focus, and optimism than your gender, race or background. Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head. Guard your good mood. Listen to music every day, joke, and love and read more for fun, especially poetry." "Get a good education, know as much as you can about everything, and listen - and look at the world - you know - feelingly." "All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really,... that's the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn't filled with them, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?"
Annette Bening What? We can't be nasty bad girls? We have to be pure and better than men?" "Acting is not about being famous, it's about exploring the human soul." "Right now, I love the fact that I have so many opportunities, but I know this privileged position cannot last. That doesn't mean that I'll stop working. I picture myself as an old actress doing cameos in films with people saying: "Isn't that that Bening woman?" "We want to be seen for who we really are, and each person has his own complex story and reasons for doing what they do." "...The hardest thing to bear is fear -- doubts, anxieties, worries inevitably surface. When I was starting out, I think I subconsciously thought that fear was something successful people didn't have. They suffer from the same humiliating doubts and fears as the rest of us...Fear is an integral part of the creative process... " "Of course I think about the way I look. Believe me, there are tables of studio executives sitting around discussing your appearance. It's understandable - it's economics. They are paying a lot of money for their leading lady and they want the girl to look good. And listen, I like glamorous movies, and I've worn plenty of make-up in films, so I don't have anything against glamour. I like it, but I also really hate movies in which the woman's got serious business and she's running around looking like she's spent too much time in front of the mirror." "The time I spend with my kids informs every fiber of who I am. And believe me, it makes me a better actress." "Eventually I'll be an old lady somewhere looking back on my life. I'll be thinking of sitting on the floor reading my kids a story - I'm not going to be thinking of the roles I didn't do."	Jodie Foster "Normal is not something to aspire to. It's something to get away from." "I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them -- and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it...Of course as a woman growing up, you are told you'­ll never survive it. That's always been very important to me as an actor." "This is the place where I learned to live this life, to curse this life and to claim this life for my own." "When I say tragedies, I don't mean like Oedipus and Electra. I mean the subtle events and influences that make you who you are. You're just given whatever you're given; not everything has to be suburban and perfect. Sure, not having a station wagon and two parents pushed me to be certain things and kept me from being others. But I'm not going to say 'Gee, I wish I had that', because I wouldn't be who I am. I'd be someone else, which is okay, but not who I am. And I like who I am."
Emma Thompson This is a scandal? Monica Lewinsky? If there was a scandal, couldn't he have been with a nun or something really venal like that? It's all so bizarre to me. I long for the J. Edgar Hoover days. Let's find a man dressing in women's clothes. Something really weird. -Emma about Bill Clintons relationship with Monica Lewinsky As far as I can see, from Sharon Stone's love scene in "Basic Instinct", they molded her body out of tough Plasticine. She was shagging Michael Douglas like a donkey, and not an inch moved. If that had been me, there would have been things flying around hitting me in the eye. -About Sharon Stone's appearance in Basic Instint, a role which Emma turned down Luckily I'm not known as a beauty, even if I do photograph all sort of glammy. If you asked people 'Do you think she's beautiful, do you think she's sexy' I think 99.9 percent would say 'Not particular, but she's a good actress and she's intelligent' -Emma on her looks Acting is the ultimate luxury. This is one of the luckiest things you could probably doing.'Hard' is going down a bloody coalmine or living in Somalia or in a war zone. That's hard! -Emma about acting There are still some woman magazines that run fantastic articles, but if you see one more article about fucking diets, you think, I'm just going to throw me off a fucking bridge, because is this all we think about? -Emma about women mags I don't go round "Sainsbury's" because it lights this terrible consumer fire in me. I've gone in for a pint of milk and a packet of spaghetti and I've come out with half the shop. -Emma about shopping Marriages stop. Marriages change. People are always saying a marriage 'failed". It's such a negative way of putting it. -Emma about marriage I was brought up by very witty people who were dealing with quite difficult things - disease and death. We don't quite know how to behave anymore. I was raised to always stand up when someone entered a room. I would never start an interview without shaking hands and looking the person in the eye. A lot of social rules are disapearing and I sometimes yearn for structure. -Emma about her childhood Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder. -Emma on, er, who she likes I'll write roles for women - good female roles. Later on I'll have lived a bit more I might have something to offer up. I think of myself as sexual in a human way, but not as a kind of bombshell. I think the sexuality I represent is less do do with fantasy. I tend to represent ordinary women. I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word -- politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit. Laughter is a celebration of all our failings, that recognition that we are human. That's what clowns are for. That's why they are important. And that's definitely what I am.
Vivien Leigh "My birth sign is Scorpio and they eat themselves up and burn themselves out. I swing between happiness and misery. I am part prude and part non conformist. I say what I think and I don't pretend and I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions." "I hope I've one thing that Scarlett never had. A sense of humor. I want some joy out of life... And she had one thing I hope I never have. Selfish egotism...Scarlett was a fascinating person whatever she did, but she was never a good person. She was too petty. too self-centered...but one thing about her was admirable. Her courage. She had more than I'll ever have." "What's happening is that roles come few and far between when an actress gets older. In the past and particularly in London, producers, playwrights and directors would think nothing of casting a woman in her 40's or 50's to portray a heroine in her 20's. These days age has become such a factor." "Her Ladyship is fucking bored with such formality and prefers to be known as Miss Vivien Leigh!." "What the actor or actress can contribute is to make people understand each other better. I believe in that." "Let me assure you, that there is absolutely nothing romantic about being an actress." "I realize that the memories I cherish most are not of first night successes, but on simple, everyday things: walking through our garden in the country after rain; sitting outside a cafe in Provence, drinking the vin the pays; staying at a little country hotel in an English market town with Larry, in the early days after our marriage, when he was serving in the Fleet Air Arm and I was touring Scotland, so that we had to make long treks to spend our weekends together." back to top