A Quote by Kathy Baker

For me, the acting part - and I have to say it makes me a little worried about my own psychological make-up - is that I just love to hide in other characters. I don't like to get up in front of people and talk as Kathy Baker. But as soon as you say 'action,' I'm lost in that character.
People come up to me on the street and make some little joke - like they'll say, 'Excuse me, sir, what time is it?' And I'll say, you know, '5:15,' and they'll say, 'Hey! Made you talk!' And that's merely a way of saying, 'I know your work and I like you.'
I've said jokes where I thought people might get up and hit me for this. A couple of people have thought about it. But they didn't. It gives you a lot of power, because if you're on shows where people are worried about getting sacked and you're not, then you're transcendent because you say what other people would like to say.
People say, "Why is it that you love to act?" And you want to say, "Well, most of acting is sitting in your trailer, either bored or worried about the scene coming up." A lot of it is about things you don't really like, so it's a wonder why acting is such a huge draw, why everyone loves it so much.
I look at all of world mythology and folklore as my toy to play with. There are just so many characters and creatures there I want to put on paper. It's a really exciting thing for me to take material that I really love and put a new coat of paint on it and present it to this audience. And I don't have to make up any of the characters. I can just pull a book of mythology off the shelf and say, "I'll use this guy." I also hate making up names for fantasy characters. I'll just flip through these books and say, "Wow, this is way crazier than anything I could make up".
When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.
I've had a couple of people come up to me after screenings and say they kind of sympathized with the character. I always get a kick out of it when people say that. It means I did something maybe a little bit to the credit of the character.
People come up to me all the time and say, 'I just found out about you!' Part of me is happy, and part of me is, like, Where the hell have you been?'
I love it when a woman hugs me. I love it when they say that I make them laugh because that means I'm doing what God called me to do. I love people. I love it when little old ladies come up and want to kiss me. It means so much to me that I get support and people know my heart. My fans know my heart and they get it.
I'm definitely not a dancer. I can move well, but it's more about the acting and the singing for me. Acting and singing are completely different, so I can't say which one I love better because I love them both. I love acting because I get to play different characters. But I also love my music because I get to portray me.
We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, "My character this, and my character that." Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me.
If you want to write about a person who isn't nice, people say, "This is a bad book. It's about somebody I couldn't stand." But that's not the point. You don't have to like a character to like a book. Most of the time, people would misjudge and say, "I didn't like the book." No, you didn't like the character. That doesn't make it any less interesting of a book. In fact, to me, it makes it more interesting.
Anything that happens after I write a song...that's fine with me. It's up to the listener to read into it what they need from it. And that's part of the reason I write like I do, so I can leave the holes in the right places so people can say, 'Yeah, that happened to me,' and they're able to have their own little fantasy about it.
I get a lot of people coming up to me and saying, 'I really hate you.' And they say it in the nicest possible way, and I accept it. It's the people who come up to you and say, 'I really liked your character. Man, he was right!' Those are the ones you worry about.
I get a lot of people coming up to me and saying, "I really hate you." And they say it in the nicest possible way and I accept it. It's the people who come up to you and say, "I really liked your character. Man, he was right!" Those are the ones you worry about.
There was a little part of me that always felt like I was going to be an actress, but I never acted when I was growing up. I was a dancer. That's all I did, all day, all my life. Maybe this was just where I was meant to be, and somehow I ended up here, but it just felt right. As soon as I started acting, it just felt like it was meant to be.
I grew up in New York, and I have that in me, that be-honest-at-all-costs, don't b.s. me attitude. I say, If you've got something to say about me, say it to my face. And then we'll either talk about it or fight about it.
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