Catherine Keener Quotes

• "Emily Mortimer is skinny and beautiful, and she's not self-obsessed."
• "For a long time Dermot worked more, and I would always go on location with him... Dermot did all the work-I think he commuted maybe 10 times between flying to Omaha from Toronto. It takes effort when you're both working, but we try not to work at the same time."
• "I don't think I'm very ambitious at all. But I seem to play people who have that quality."
• "I encounter really tough men and women who are just so harsh, you can't bend them. You do come across these kinds of people in every profession-just unyielding."
• "I have a hard time visualizing anything, which is why I'm not a director, and which is why I try to work with ones I know have a strong idea in mind."
• "I just never fantasized about Mr. Rogers, but I like his whole vibe."
• "I know many great actors who have small heads."
• "I never ice skated before... I learned enough to skate for the 20 yards I needed to."
• "I read the script about five times, out loud, and I still had no idea what it meant."
• "I studied with Susan Peretz and Roy London, an amazing teacher who died of AIDS."
• "I think I'm pretty adaptable."
• "I think people are always looking for a good comedy."
• "I was a waitress. I was pretty good at it. I liked to solve those puzzles-you know, when to put the dinner order in, that sort of thing."
• "I was an English and history major, and I was in a class that culminated in a play at the end of the semester for Father's Weekend-we had a thing at our college called Father's Weekend where we all paid tribute to our fathers."
• "I... had guys on the set who didn't like me... they weren't interested in the cold character."
• "I'm not a public figure at all. I don't really go out a lot to places where there are people like those who sit at the bottom of your driveway."
• "I'm paranoid, anyway."
• "I'm pretty organized. I'm pretty controlling. I don't have big plans or designs. But I don't rely on a Palm Pilot or help or other technology-no! I'm barely good with emailing and a fax machine. I organize things in my head; I have a pretty good memory, so that helps me out a lot."
• "I'm unqualified for anything else. I'm barely qualified for this."
• "I've worked with a lot of great directors."
• "If you give a character room to breathe, they come alive."
• "If you look at the parts... they are really great parts, and the writing is always great, and the people that I've been able to work with are amazing."
• "If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew."
• "Insecurity is just something that's there all the time. I've never been crippled by it."
• "It does help that Dermot is an actor. I hate having to care about that stuff. But I know it's legitimate and he appreciates what the ramifications are."
• "It occurred to me that it would be interesting to be a man for a short amount of time, just to see if there actually is a difference in the way that we think and feel, like people are always talking about. I don't really know that there's a difference, because I've only been a woman."
• "It takes a while for me to actually want to do something. I don't find a lot of things that I really want to do."
• "It's important for me to connect with the script and to know after meeting the director if it's a person I'm going to feel unguarded around."
• "Most times when people pitch you as being perfect for a part... they don't look at you as an actor who can transform. A lot of people are so literal."
• "My work environment has always been very safe and very warm, so I have the freedom to speak directly to my friend,s and vice-versa."
• "So, if it's going to be a guy playing 17, why not Jake Gyllenhaal, who's fantastic, adorable, fun and enthusiastic? It was a blast."
• "Sometimes it just doesn't translate to people. You just move on, and you feel bad because people worked so hard on it and everyone loved it... Everybody was treated so well and was going for something and trying to do the best work possible."
• "Steven Soderbergh's movie. That was insane... I mean, newsflash! Steven Soderbergh's great!"
• "The celebrity-making machine-photographers, paparazzi, press and stuff like that-can be ruthless."
• "The more people involved in making a movie, the worse it is, generally."
• "The movies I usually do are maybe three or four weeks because they don't have a lot of money."
• "The movies I'm in not a lot of people see, but it's alright."
• "The people who make those movies tend to be studios, because they need a lot of money to do it, and those people don't hire me."
• "These days there are a lot of people who just want to be famous. I think that comes from a naive place, because those people generally don't know what it's like."
• "When I was in college, at Wheaton-I inadvertently got cast in a play, and I had a really great time doing it. I didn't know I had any knack for it, but I really enjoyed myself. It was a complete surprise."
• "When you make-believe, you're somebody else. As an adult, I think people have a fascination with acting, as well. A lot of people I know would love to act, and it's all in a very kind of innocent way. It's so much fun to do different things. To experience new things all the time."
• "You know, Salma Hayek is a great cook, and she's a friend... She's an amazing cook. If she opened up a restaurant, I would so get in on the coattails."