Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actress Vera Farmiga.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Vera Ann Farmiga is an American actress. She began her professional acting career on stage in the original Broadway production of Taking Sides (1996). She made her television debut in the Fox fantasy adventure series Roar (1997), and her feature film debut in the drama-thriller Return to Paradise (1998). Farmiga's breakthrough came in 2004 with her starring role as a drug addict in the drama Down to the Bone. She received further praise for the drama film Nothing But the Truth (2008), and won critical acclaim for starring in the 2009 comedy-drama Up in the Air, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.
Editing yourself is like an irksome coin toss. You've got to strip yourself of super ego and operate from the id. Maybe I've got my Freud mixed up. It's just hard to trade a beauty shot for the performance with truth and a brightly lit zit.
Ruminants are a perfectly normal thing to possess when you live in upstate New York. It's just moving scenery. It's kind of like the equivalent of Great Danes. It's the way you keep your grass mowed. It's the way you keep your weed-whacking to a minimum.
The biggest research of all when I do a character is self-examination. You look at yourself and you ask, 'How am I similar to this person and how am I different?'
You don't have to be gay to be attracted to your friend.
The Ukrainian community is tight-knit by nature.
I just hate one-dimensional portrayals of religion; it's too cheap and easy to do, and ignores the nuances that go into having a belief system.
I think I always try to be accommodating and open and available and proving for my director. I love to give as many takes as they want. I love to give them as many choices as they want.
I hate being manipulated by song. Don't tell me what I should be feeling. I don't want cellos or violins to be telling me that I should be bawling right now.
I, for one, am tired of seeing movies about men damaging each other.
I've played a lot of mothers in my movies.
There really are three types of 'religious' movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.
I love Saturday nights with my best friend and a big bowl of pasta, wanting a good scare, something that will say, 'Listen, your life is not as bad as this. Your life can be so much worse.'
I chase after inspiring stories.
I don't necessarily need Hollywood.
I think maybe I was a shepherdess in a past life.
Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.
I look for struggle in the roles I choose - struggle and perseverance.
You don't necessarily have to be religious to pray.
I think God gave us senses of humor, and we should use them.
We take a lot for granted as second wave feminists, what our mothers and aunts did for us.
There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like 'Down to the Bone,' you have the opportunity to be of service.
We're all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction and hatred and anxiety, it's the antithesis I think of what religion was designed to do.
I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.
I'm part wood nymph. I require mountains and warm, dense patches of moss to thrive.
I have the best husband a wife could possibly have. He's the best father my children could have.
My father instilled in me - of utmost importance and innate in me is the yearning to determine for myself - to define God, to define holiness for myself.
It's a very different thing, religion and faith. Religion is man-made, it's man-regulated. And faith, you can define God as you wish. But I think they're two different things.
Faith is important to me.
Your soul either feels lifted by something that you read, or it feels squashed by it.
In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.
I'm from the school of, 'if you want more, you have to require more from yourself.'
I've never felt the breath of God - you can take that statement literally or metaphorically - more than when I was yearning for a personal, intimate connection to something bigger than me.
I just can't feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don't understand her and want to understand her.
Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.
Do I pray? Yes. Prayer is very important to me.
You ought to have a perspective when you're making a film.
There's no wrong way to experience a film.
I don't have a caustic sense of humor. What I find funny, that humor comes from a much gentler place.
As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character.
I think that films about faith made for faith-based communities have a certain tactic.
When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them: my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a lover, as a daughter.
I'm saying that the depth of exploration of the male psyche and the female psyche is uneven. I see further, deeper renderings of what it means to be a man.
We are all seekers in some way. There are those of us who think they have all the answers and there are those of us who may never get an answer.
I grew up in a Ukrainian Catholic-turned-Christian household, and that is my family's faith.
There are women who make things better, there are women who change things, there are women who make things happen, who make a difference. I want to be one of those women.
In these times, in this harsh, rude, warring world that we live in, where most of the bloodshed is 'My god is greater than your god,' and we're fighting in the name of our god, we have to find a way to peaceably coexist, spiritually.
Whether you're making a million dollar film or a $100 million film there is never enough money, there's never enough time.
Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul.
I think all religions can agree on certain definitions of God and concepts of God, like God being the god of love, the great 'I am' energy.
Working with children is a whole other ball game. They're like little animals. You have to keep the camera turned on them all the time. Sometimes it takes a 41-minute take to get one sentence out in a believable way.
I'm just someone who marvels at God.
I've never graced the cover of a fashion magazine.
I can't get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.
You earn very little money on independent films and I'm the provider for my home, so I do have to think of taking one for the accountant time and again and that means studio pictures.
Music is what our feelings sound like.
I come from a massive family, and the youngest is twentysomething years younger than I am, so I grew up with children.
Sometimes I attract roles that are necessary either for personal growth or enlightenment.
Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I've ever been privy to as an actress.
It's true: I don't remember what life was like before parenthood.