A Quote by Melissa Leo

I love acting. I really do. I think that's maybe the one thing that is known about me. — © Melissa Leo
I love acting. I really do. I think that's maybe the one thing that is known about me.
I am fairly embraced by the Hollywood community, and I love making movies and I love acting, but I'm not real crazy about the Hollywood system. So the fact that they embrace me is a shock to me because I tell them to kiss my ass all the time. I don't understand why they haven't thrown me out on my ear. The other thing is I don't participate much. I have very few friends within the movie community. I hang out with some guys I've known forever. They're all broke and eat me out of house and home. But I stay home mostly and I don't go to the parties. Maybe that preserves me.
Really good acting is not about dialogue. It's really just about small moments that really make the whole entire scene and the intention completely different than even maybe what the characters are saying. Two characters could be saying, "I hate you, and I don't want to be with you anymore!" But yet somehow, their toes are just inching more, you know, closer to each other. So a really big thing about acting is really just with your body.
I think people are uncomfortable seeing pregnant women, particularly with any kind of conflict. [Pregnancy is] very much a projection of life and love, but it's also very complicated. People have very complicated pregnancies. They could be accidental or people suffer depression, and that was a really interesting thing for me. And a challenging thing. I have not been pregnant. I don't know what that's like, let alone to be really conflicted about it. Acting in the film about pregnancy was a really interesting thing to do.
Love is a vulnerable thing. Falling in love is like a great drug. But then to really be known and really let someone else be known is very vulnerable. It's a weird thing.
I'm not really sure if I have anything that inspires me. I think what goes into my work is everything beforehand that I do with my dad. He teaches me acting, and I think maybe without him it would be pretty hard. I started acting for fun, really, because my dad's an actor and my sister's an actor, so I started doing it and it was normal. But it got places really fast, and I started doing feature film auditions and stuff.
As I got older, I went to school. I started doing plays, I learned about the craft of acting, and I started to love acting for different reasons. I think I started to love acting because it brought me closer to people and made me more compassionate.
I love acting. I've been doing it since I was 16, and it's in my nature. It's the thing I do best. But as much as I love acting, I love cinema more. I always had a thing about creating images.
Maybe he didn’t really encourage me to do things, but he didn’t prevent me from doing them either. But after a while, I didn’t do things because I didn’t want him to think different about me. But the thing is, I wasn’t being honest. So, why would I care whether or not he loved me when he didn’t really even know me?
I really, specifically, love acting, and I think it's a really cool thing to be really indulgent and follow that. I have a lot of ambitions in life, but for the next few years, I just want to be an actor. That's a lucky opportunity, and that drives me to want to be good at that.
I love acting. I think that's the best job in the world, but I don't really enjoy the career of it so much. You don't have as much control over your life or the material as you do, well, certainly when you're a director or a producer, so while I love acting, I prefer to make my living as a filmmaker, but my rule on acting is if somebody asks me to do a part, I'll do it.
I really, specifically, love acting, and I think it's a really cool thing to be really indulgent and follow that.
For an actor to remain a child is rather important. It's a childlike, dreamy thing, acting, if you think about it. It's the sort of thing children fantasise about, playing cowboys and Indians in the street. I think that acting is just a highly refined development of that.
But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest. Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.
Confidence. That's huge as an actor. Confidence can get you a long way. Maybe it's a cultural thing, being Korean, but my first reflex has always been to exude humility - but it doesn't help you in acting. For acting, humility isn't the best thing. It'll weaken your work. So it's a head game for me. "Can I really be confident in knowing my skill set is down? Can I perform like I own this role?"
I think of myself more as an actress. I do my music because I'm very passionate about my music. I love making music. I love inspiring people. I love making great songs that are just really fun. But that's all it usually is for me. I love touring and singing great songs. I don't think I'll ever win a Grammy one day, and I'm totally fine with that. I do work really hard when it comes to acting and I want to do that for a long time.
I think that's what I really love about acting; all of the social and moral codes of society can be thrown away when you're acting, and it's just you being totally committed to the role.
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