There's always that key to every character that lets you go to those places you need to go to. No matter how much you might hate the character, it makes you understand it.
Patrick Swayze was in an acting class with me. We were working on Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf together, and there was this beautiful blonde who was playing Honey - and I'm playing loudmouthed Martha - and she was so gorgeous, and the two guys were flirting and having fun with her, and so I started crying. Buddy came over and said, "Don't you know that you're beautiful? Don't you know that these women are beautiful?" It meant so much to me, because he was already sort of a star.
My father died right after the movie Rain Man was released. He got to see it, then literally the day before he died, he asked Mama to take him to see it one more time - because he knew he was declining. Tom's assistant at the time told him my father died, and he wrote me a very personal note. I haven't seen him since, but you can't say anything bad about Tom Cruise to me, because anybody who takes the time to do that is very special.
My daughter loved All About Steve movie, because she's 6 feet tall and she's different. And I got a lot of great e-mails from people who are different. I'm a gay icon. I'll just say it. That's what they say to me, so I'll accept it. I got so many e-mails saying that it meant so much to those people. My daughter said, "They didn't like it just because she didn't get the guy! If they had lived happily ever after, people would have liked that movie."
To me, All About Steve movie is sweet-natured and sweet-hearted, and I can't get enough sweet-hearted movies. I want to be inspired right now. I think things are pretty tough in the world. And people at the première were loving it - I mean, loving it! So I'm so sorry to hear people saying that it is the worst movie of 2009. I don't buy it at all.
Maybe because All About Steve is about offbeat people, viewers don't want them to be heroes. There is something archetypal in us that we like a leading lady, we like a leading man, and we like people with my features to get killed. Maybe that's why the reviews were so severe - because good Lord, I've seen much worse films!
My agent says, "You have an audition for the next Dustin Hoffman movie, playing a pioneer woman." And I go, "All right!" I passed Barry Levinson in the hall on the way into my audition, and I saw him do a double-take. I think I looked so determined that I got the job right then.
Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were both so generous to me on the Rain Man set. I remember Tom was in the trailer when I said to the makeup guy, "You know, I would really like to not wear any makeup. I just have this feeling that she wouldn't have any." And Tom said, "Yeah, that's cool!"
I was so frustrated with my whole life that I walked up this hilltop and screamed at the heavens. It was very dramatic - but then again, I am an actress - and I said, "Fine! I'll be a character actress! Just tell me what you want me to do!" I was so angry at the universe.
I was up at Big Sur with Christopher Reeve and Christine Lahti, doing this woman in a big fat-suit - Mrs. Bassett in Tennessee Williams' Summer And Smoke - and my husband was in the show too, playing Lahti's fiancée. Every night he'd be proposing to beautiful Christine Lahti, and I'd barrel onstage in this fat-suit. I hated it! But I did it, because by then I knew that that was my casting.
Milton Katselas said, "Who are you to look down your nose at Anna Magnani and Maureen Stapleton? Who do you think you are?" I was doing this kooky meditation at the time called inner-guide meditation, where you go into a cave and you have a guide, and you fly around. So I said to my inner guide, "Take me to the energy that's blocking me from accepting my casting" - because I understood it intellectually, but I didn't want to do it in my heart.
I had this great teacher, Milton Katselas, who was this loud Greek who had directed Bette Davis and Liv Ullmann, and brought Edward Albee to this country. He said, "Why do you keep trying to be a Rolex watch when you're the salt of the earth?" Except he said it much louder.
I had a very hard time accepting myself as a character actress, because I wanted to be glamorous and a leading lady like everybody else. I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty good, but casting didn't ever see me that way.
Patrick Swayze had done The Outsiders already - he was certainly the star of our class - and for a big, sexy, horseback-ridin' Texan to come over and tell me that I'm beautiful, and look me right in the eye and make me accept that there's a beauty in the characters I play meant so much to me.
Patrick Swayze was risk-taking - because he not only did a transvestite, but in Donnie Darko, he played a pedophile! Talk about a risky thing for a movie star, and he jumped right in. We even shot some of those video sequences of his character out on his ranch. I mean, he opened his heart and his ranch to us. He was just an awesome guy.
I love Maude Pearson character from Agel. I love that she walls her son up because he has a girlfriend! In fact, I have that clip on my reel - her walling him up and saying, "What are you going to do about that streetwalker now? You belong to me! What are you going to do?" And did you know the ghost mom has her own Angel trading card?
I've died so many times in so many movies. What is it about my face that people want to kill it? I'm sure they would've killed Kitty Farmer if they could've!
Sometimes I'll say, "When Sandy Bullock and I were doing Speed - the movie, not the drug." Just in case someone's listening.
I knew Steve Carell because of Little Miss Sunshine, so I felt very comfortable with him. Maybe he always does it to guest stars, but I felt as though he was being particularly funny with me, and particularly stretching the boundaries of improvisation. He's such a comic genius. I hate to use that word, because everyone throws it around, but Steve Carell is channeling something.
I never have broken up in comedy, ever. There's something about me that I just don't break on camera - maybe because I'm just so cheap, and I know how expensive it is to shoot - but I broke on Sordid Lives, and I broke on The Office. Those are the only two times in my life.
I thought Sissy Hickey should be really skinny and leathery and have one of those really husky voices, but Del Shores kept saying, "I wrote this part for you." He took me to his house and showed me pictures of all his Texas relatives, and they looked exactly like my family.
I love smoking. I miss it every day of my life. If I found out that it didn't cause cancer, I would go out and buy, like, eight cartons right now.
There are several things iconic about Sissy Hickey character - even just sounds. Like, "Awww." People love that sound! "Awww." I actually didn't want to do the role, because I didn't think I looked like a smoker - even though I used to be a smoker.
I grew up around people, so I know 'em, and I do like playin' 'em. I'm not religious, but I am kind of a spiritual fanatic, so maybe I understand them in that way.
It's Richard Kelly's brilliance, because he led me to Donnie Darko performance. He wanted sincerity, he didn't want it to be one color, and he made me go vulnerable, and I think that's why it works. When you can get all those different colors and levels in one line. Time Out New York voted it "Best Line Of The Year" - which is crazy, because how many words is it? "Sometimes. I. Doubt. Your. Commitment. To. Sparkle. Motion." Eight words. It's crazy.
