A Quote by Rita Moreno

When I was in my teens and into my early 20s, I had acne. I used to get those big purple jobs, but not a lot of them, thank goodness, because you really couldn't see them in the films that I did.
There was a time in my late teens and early 20s where I was motivated by this wanting to get out, to prove to the world that I had something to offer - that kind of youthful spirit, where maybe I had my eye on fame and fortune. I mellowed out in my late 20s and now that I'm in my early 30s, I'm coming to peace with it.
I've always been such a fan of short films - in fact, I never considered that I would actually make a feature. I just thought I wanted to make shorts for the rest of my life. They are a lot harder to have shown and a lot harder to find and see as an audience, but I don't know. It's just a form that I really love. I was just making them for the process, but ultimately, I did get them into festivals, and they did end up on television, and they had as much of a life as short films can.
When I started acting in the film industry when I was 16 years old, in 1980, I was going to all the revival theaters in Los Angeles. They were playing mostly films from the '60s and '70s, some from the early '20s and '30s, before that Hays commission. Those films did question things a lot, and there definitely was a switch in 1934. You can see very distinctly in 1934, it's harder to understand what the real culture was. Films made before 1934, you can really kind of see the racism, sexism, drug use, etc. that was going on at that time. And then it was all stopped.
I used to watch the 'Jackie Gleason Show' and Phil Silvers, those early TV things. And a lot of them were patterned on the silent comedies of the '20s.
I've obviously used fans - I wouldn't say all my life, because we couldn't afford them when I was young, but from my 20s and onwards we've had to use fans. And I've always loathed them. Everything about them. The way you adjust them, getting them at the angle you want. Carrying them. Cleaning them. The danger of putting your finger in them.
I love the old stuff that's why I included it. I did see them play a lot as they supported the Banshees all the time. And I was a friend of the Banshees so I used to get there early to see the Ants and while the Banshees were on I used to like to go in their dressing room and steal their booze!
I've been influenced by a lot of films. And a lot of them are the typical interesting, artsy films. But I haven't talked enough about how there are those few big blockbusters that really rock your world.
I can't really blame a lot of young sisters and brothers who believe that education has anything to offer them. Because as a matter of fact, it has nothing to offer them. Suppose they do get a high school diploma that is meaningful. What kind of job is awaiting them. The jobs that used to be available to working class people are not there as a result of the de-industrialization of this economy.
I don't care for horror and fantasy films. I never go to see them in the theater. I know I've played in many of them, but I didn't do them because of their genre - I did them just because I loved their scripts.
My father did not have a lot of security in his life. He did odd jobs. He had a real struggle to make money. He lost a lot of time in his 20s, after the war, because he was sent to a forced-labour camp in Siberia.
A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved.
My standards are higher than they used to be, I think. They don't necessarily have to make sense, but I certainly work on them a lot harder now -- partly because I do them on the computer, and I print them out and fix them, and print them and fix them over and over again, whereas in the early days I used to just scratch down a few things on a piece of paper.
Early in my career when we went to golf tournaments and charity dinners I noticed businessmen and executives would give the players their cards. Well, they're giving you their cards for a reason. I said to my wife, 'All the guys get these cards and then when they get to the parking lot they rip them up or throw them away. It's really weird.' My wife .. said maybe you should just sign a picture and mail it to them. You know, 'Great playing golf with you,' or whatever. So, I did and lo and behold some of those guys I sent pictures to way back then are now CEOs at big companies.
I developed acne when I was about 19, at the beginning of my modeling career. I didn't have the huge cystic-type of acne, but a lot of little bumps all over my face. They were small, but you could see them in photographs. You can't have acned skin and work as a model.
If my life had gone in a different direction - some of the choices you makes when you're in your teens and your early 20s, I fortunately feel that I haven't been marked by those things.
You know, when you see a haircut of yourself from around 12 or 13, it's rough. I also had really bad acne. Where I had to take this medicine - serious medicine - with warning on the label, like, "Do NOT take this if you are pregnant." Thank God I wasn't pregnant at the time. But yeah, I just had bad haircuts, bad acne, and bad clothes for a long time. And probably still right now.
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