A Quote by Gena Rowlands

When I was in Middle of The Night, MGM came and offered me a contract and I said that when I got out of the play, I'd like to try it. I didn't know anything about making movies but I was certainly finding it interesting.
I just remember saying to myself that I'd much rather do movies than modeling, and that it was worth a try. I didn't really know anything about it. I hadn't seen many movies, or so-called, good movies. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Star Wars and Night of the Living Dead. When I got more curious about the movies, I thought they were something you had to learn about and go to school for and read every book.
I was in a ballet company, and I auditioned for Bob Alton, a top choreographer at MGM. He sent me to see Arthur Freed, who offered me a seven-year contract.
When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.
I didn't know this about myself, but when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out I realised that I didn't enjoy a huge amount of recognition. I didn't react to it well, but I think life is about finding out who you are and what you like. So I started doing independent movies and art-house films instead.
I remember a meeting I had at MGM. It was at the end of their reign. They say we have you under contract, and because you’re under contract, we’d like to you to work. I said, well, that seems fair. But if it’s a really good movie, they were going to give it to a particular actor that was not under contract. The bottom line was they were going to pay you more if it was a bad one and pay you less if it was a good one.
If you go to Sundance, the experience that I've had there as a viewer is... there's like a hundred movies there, and you've got to figure out what movies are sold out, what can you see. Sometimes you go to see movies that you don't know anything about because it just works into your schedule.
I won the argument against the knife that night, but barely. I had some other good ideas around that time--about how jumping off a building or blowing my brains out with a gun might stop the suffering. but something about spending a night with a knife in my hand did it. The next morning I called my friend Susan as the sun came up, begged her to help me. I don't think a woman in the whole history of my family had ever done that before, had ever sat in the middle of the road like that and said, in the middle of her life, "I cannot walk another step further--somebody has to help me.
The rumors are lies. There were a lot of people said we're not going to play that we don't have a contract. ... We got it worked out got it hammered out.
I have two years left on my contract with Hertha Berlin, but I'd like to play in England and if I'm offered a good contract from an English club then I'd want to go there.
It looked like it might not work out with Michael Keaton, so they asked Joel Schumacher, `Who do you want for Batman?` When he said me, I asked my agent, `Why? Who did they not get?` I`d met with Joel a couple of times before about other (movies). I didn`t know anything in terms of the cast, story or anything, but I said, `Sure, sounds like fun.` - On accepting his role as Batman.
I came from the theatre, which had given me opportunities in television as well as a film adaptation of my second play 'Daddy's Dyin'... Who's Got The Will?' for MGM.
I didn't actually start to play till I was about 10. My father came home from work a Friday and he said: 'Would you like to learn to play the guitar?' I said: 'Yeah! I'd love to try!' But I didn't think for one moment that I'd be able to do it.
In the 1940s, I was doing something called the Equity Library Theater in New York, when a movie company came to see the play I was in and offered me a contract. But the deal was, my nose was too big and they wanted me to have surgery. My jaw was crooked, and I'd have to have that fixed, too. And they didn't like my name; it was too common.
I grew up on particular movies that said something to me as a kid from Missouri, movies that showed me places I'd yet traveled, or different cultures, or explained something, or said something in a better way than I could ever say. I wanted to find the movies like that. It was less about a career than finding the films I wanted to see.
It's not my dreams that get me in trouble, it's what my wife dreams I did. My wife punched me in the middle of the night; I woke up and went Oww! What was that for?, and she goes I dreamt you were making out with Faith Hill. I said I wasn't dreaming anything! Send her over to my dreams, and we'll both be happy.
Anything I've asked of MGM Grand, they've done for me in a heartbeat. They're all about making entertainers and athletes happy.
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