Jennifer Jason Leigh's Quotes
Born: 1962-02-05
Profession: Actress
Nation: American
Biography of Jennifer Jason Leigh
People equate success with youth. And if you haven't had a certain amount of success by a certain time in your life, it's never going to happen. There's a fear about that. So people start lying about their age really young. I've never done that because I think it's so insignificant.
Tags: Age, Life, SuccessI'm a typical middle child. I'm the mediator. The one that makes everything OK, puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody's happy. It's hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.
Tags: Change, Happy, NatureActing for kids is like playing house, you know? But growing up in Hollywood, it just made it seem possible.
Tags: Acting, Kids, PlayingI could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.
Tags: Girl, Successful, YoungI like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in and not just casually observe.
Tags: Audience, Movie, ObserveI love being in therapy. It's just constantly fulfilling for me.
Tags: Fulfilling, Love, TherapyI love Polaroids and I have a Polaroid camera collection from the '50s.
Tags: Camera, Collection, LoveI loved acting as a kid because I was kind of shy, so it brought me out of myself.
Tags: Acting, Kid, LovedI used to hang out by the food table at parties because you don't have to talk to anybody. If you do then you can talk about the food.
Tags: Food, Talk, UsedI've always done roles that really appealed to me on a gut level and which I found inspiring.
Tags: Done, Found, LevelOne of the reasons that I do a lot of different kinds of pictures is because I learn a lot when I'm doing them.
Tags: Kinds, Learn, PicturesWriting, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying.
Tags: Directing, Satisfying, WritingWriting, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying. I've never been happier.
Tags: Directing, Happier, WritingI just don't want to talk about my personal life. I feel like it's mine, I'm not trying to promote it. It's nice to have things that are your own, that you value enough that you don't have to use to sell a movie.
Tags: Life, Nice, TryingI like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in, and not just casually observe. Whatever my part in it, just as an audience member, I find that exciting.
Tags: Exciting, Movie, WhateverI like to investigate all different kinds of people, I guess, and find out what makes them who they are, and try to be honest in the portrayal, and truthful, and find out how to understand that person, how to communicate that person's experience.
Tags: Experience, Try, UnderstandI'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.
Tags: Feelings, Remember, StrongPeople can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person - and that's just not me.
Tags: Crazy, Found, SingleVisit partners pages
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Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.
Tags: Together, Trust, WholeI always find it extremely hard to remember the act of beginning. I almost deliberately forget it.
Tags: Forget, Hard, RememberI do believe we're all adaptable, and you're probably more adaptable than you realize.
Tags: Adaptable, RealizeI think every single person perceives things differently. We are all singular.
Tags: Perceives, Single, SingularI think it's restrictive to typecast myself as a novelist because I enjoy other forms of expression. I love literature and I love cinema.
Tags: Enjoy, Expression, LoveI think striking the right tone for your story is, if you like, the alchemical work of writing.
Tags: Story, Work, WritingI'm trying to get under people's skin in a way. I don't like films that go in one ear and out the other.
Tags: Films, Skin, TryingI, myself, don't like to see a film on Friday night and then forget it by the next day.
Tags: Forget, Friday, NightIt's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.
Tags: Dangerous, Film, PopularityOne of the most ephemeral and important things is atmosphere and tone and it's very hard to put your finger on what creates that.
Tags: Atmosphere, Hard, PutThe concentration of the elite athlete is akin perhaps to the concentration of the writer.
Tags: Athlete, Perhaps, WriterThe great thing about being a writer is that you have a long, perhaps frighteningly long time in which to do your work.
Tags: Great, Time, WorkThe most important thing is to have something important to say and finding the means to say it.
Tags: Finding, MeansAll this talk about writing is a little bit moot, because it is almost an unthinking process. It is actually a paradox because you are constantly making choices.
Tags: Making, Talk, WritingI love films where you go into the cinema and loosen the edges of yourself and you hopefully enter into the world of the film. You're watching something unfold before you. I prefer the idea of wonder or intense wonder over shock or something.
Tags: Idea, Love, YourselfI've never forgotten what it's like to be in your early twenties, which is not a particularly easy time. You've left your family, you've left the strictures of high school, and you're trying to break free and form yourself but you have to support yourself as well. We don't really give enough credence to that time of life and to its troubles.
Tags: Family, Life, TimeThe point is the 'me' that you see before you is not the 'me' in my private little space, shape-shifting into the writing role, nor is it the 'me' that works with the actors. Here, at the end of the film doing interviews, I feel like I'm in disguise.
Tags: End, Here, WritingThere is a difference between a voyeur and a tender witness. Maybe I think the audience is more of a tender witness than a voyeur, which has a shady undertone.
Tags: Between, Difference, Maybe