Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actress Laura Dern.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
I knew you had to go in and audition and maybe they'd hire you, and that's where you start. I had a good understanding about press: that it's the actor's responsibility to publicize his or her films.
I don't turn my nose up at anything. If it's a great part, it's a great part. I'd love to do a box-office hit.
It's a strange world, as David Lynch would say.
I think there are ways to get so caught up in your career and being so heavy and dramatic, and everyone wants to be a tortured genius.
I always wanted to do a 'Ms. Smith Goes to Washington.'
I wanted to go to Jupiter. That was my plan from day one, and David Lynch gave me the ticket.
Wild at Heart made a few people angry-they thought I was exploiting women by showing that when a woman says no she really means yes.
People now tell me it's a good thing I stayed away from teen films. Well, it wasn't my choice. I wasn't hired.
It's my deepest interest as an actor: I love discovering how human beings work, how their flaws reveal themselves - how to learn and grow from that - and how characters teach me things as a woman and as a parent.
There's something so accessible about heroes who have faults.
If we could all figure out a way to just be true to ourselves and have a good time doing what we're doing, it would be a lot more fun.
I hope we can be consummate artists as women or revolutionaries, or whatever women want to be, and also have love, not only for ourselves but from a partner.
Whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you've never felt comfortable with, or never knew about.
All I can start with is what moves me and feels like a great challenge as an actor and I think is saying something unusual or irreverent or human - honest in some way.
I tend to always love material with flawed protagonists and morally ambiguous people.
Jealousy is a scary thing.
Decision-making is very scary for me.
I like movies about longing and desperation, and dark and light things, stories about people struggling to raise children, and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.
It's one thing to have forced time off as an actor, and another thing when you actually say, 'I don't want to read anything, and I don't want to talk to anybody.'
The bad news is, I have worked less than I have liked. The good news is, I can look back on my body of work and feel truly proud of the work I have done.
A lot of people have asked whether acting is in my genes. I don't know if anyone is born to act. And it certainly wasn't pushed on me. It was something I wanted to do.
Starting my career as a kid, I was doing what jobs I got.
You don't always get to work as much as you like, because I'm waiting to find things that I care about. Sometimes that's frustrating.
I like to play people who are deeply flawed, and I want to find the good nature in them. I even try to be kind to myself when I've made big mistakes.
That's life - to turn each other on, to feel good, to feel in love.
Stay true to your own voice, and don't worry about needing to be liked or what anybody else thinks. Keep your eyes on your own paper.
Like anything else, acting can become boring - a chore, really - if there isn't any challenge. And I like taking challenges. Just when people think they have me figured out, I like to surprise them.
We like our archetypes and heroes to be what they are at face value. And life doesn't work out like that.
The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour.
It would be great to make a movie that had the style of a great '30's film.
I care a lot about fragrance not only in my life, but sometimes it feels right while working on a character.
I was raised Catholic, and my grandmother taught me to stay. As a teenager, I thought if you went on a date, you should stay for a couple of years. I didn't realize that if he wasn't your cup of tea, you got to leave.
I've always loved film more than theater.
Luckily, I was raised by people who'd already seen all the yuck stuff, which is why they originally didn't want me to act. I understood the difference between getting a part at a Hollywood party and getting a job.
I was raised by an actress, and I watched all those women turn 60 and ask, Shouldn't get face work? My mother and Anne Bancroft said, We're not going to fall into that.
It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents.
When man decides he can control nature, he's in deep trouble.
What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?
My mother is extremely interested in everything esoteric.
I'm a natural blonde. I was a towhead as a kid, and then it got ashier when I was 18.
I'm lucky enough that directors sometimes seek me out for little projects that people don't even know about, that just surface later on.
I've got the sort of personality that requires me to find some sort of release, and for me, it's performing.
I love being in my 40s.
It's really fun to act like a bimbo. But it's fun to act like a bimbo only when people know that you really aren't one.
Growth doesn't hurt. This is what I've learned. In the end, it doesn't hurt. It hurts while it's happening. But in the end, you know, for life, for parenting, and for the arts, it's not a bad - not a bad thing to try for.
'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' is one of the greatest films of all time.
My mother opened a bank account for me when I made $60 on my first day of work as an extra. She's that kind of mother.
If I had different parents who were in it for the money, I might have a different perspective. But they really are artists; they intelligently approach each character and prepare in every sense of the word. I grew up in a world that had great discipline.
I made a commitment to myself; that I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to do films that make a difference. It has to move people.
I try to do things I love or care about for some reason.
I knew I wanted to become an actor when I was 7 years old. My dad was working with Alfred Hitchcock, my mom was working with Martin Scorsese - and it was the great summer of my childhood.
My dad taught me to never be pigeonholed; to really allow yourself to reinvent characters as they reinvent you; to be bold and to be willing to play seemingly unlikeable people.
I really don't consider myself to be a conventional Hollywood star. I've never really been marketed by the big studios to do mass market box office films.
There are a lot more female writers wanting to direct their own material and hopefully will be given the opportunity.
I have never been someone who applied 'work begets work' to my career, sometimes unfortunately.
Diet is weird. It's elusive. I just try to listen to my body.
I'm interested in flawed protagonists. I was raised on them.
With 'Mask,' 'Smooth Talk' and 'Blue Velvet,' I loved the specific experiences so much. Each one was a specific filmmaker with a specific vision.
There's always a side of a woman that likes a man from the other side of the tracks.
At the end of the day, you have to sit with the scripts and decide where your heart is.