Tea Leoni Quotes

You know sometimes I just want to curl up on stage and lie there for a while - it's weird.

When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing.

The worst is when I know I'm going to have to cry in a scene.

I used to stand in front of the mic and cry.

I'm not a pitiable creature. It's just that I suffer very eloquently.

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

Drama is hard for me. Crying is much harder for me than laughter.

A heart that hurts is a heart that works.

In movies, you get to explore parts of yourself that in real life, people shy away from, like looking stupid or embarrassing yourself or getting too angry, anything inappropriate. As an actor, you walk into those moments.

Acting is a subtle combination of hiding and revealing yourself, and as I'm not an extrovert, this is painful for me.

I'm not really that comfortable, to be honest, singing about my darkest moments.

Being vulnerable was difficult for me at first because I've said things in my songs about how I felt that I never told anybody.

It's only when I'm on stage that I really come to terms with the fact that other people are hearing my most inner, darkest thoughts.

You, sleeping on your bed of nails. Weeping an ocean beyond the pale. Strange, sorrow is your greatest skill. You're suffering from overkill... Choose whether to laugh or to cry. Menace and promise mingle in your eye. Wait, it's only a matter of time. You know everything will be fine... Rain falls down and the seas run high. When you're by my side we can rise above it. Let me dry all the tears inside. On your way you cannot hide from the howling wind and the roaring tide. You might get hurt but your fears will subside when you at last escape from the tears inside.

Alice started to cry. It came with no sound, no shuddering, no childlike hysterics, just a soul-deep release that turned into moisture and dripped down her puffy pink cheeks. She touched her tears, frowning. Then she looked up at Julia and whimpered two words before she fell asleep. ‘Real hurts.’

I almost never cry, and it's something I don't like about myself. I sometimes try and make myself cry. Sometimes, when I'm in pain, I say if I could just cry it would make it so much easier.

Half of acting is you're very intimidated, overcoming your fears, letting yourself be vulnerable in front of people and that sort of stuff.

It's occurred to me I need to laugh at myself more, and that I don't need to be some sad folk singer all the time. I don't want to be the queen of pain.

Acting is an uncomfortable business because you have to make yourself vulnerable.

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death.

It is something actresses need to go through and I think they look forward to being naked in a movie. I don't know why, but it is something you need to exhaust from yourself.

What we try to do in TSAW, which is Tasha Smith Actors Workshop, is to help the actor get to the core of who they really are and how they really feel. So, we may have them do a dump, where you just basically express everything that you feel that you have not been able to express, whether it's good, bad, or ugly.

I cried every day of first grade. In class. Which meant I ended up getting comfortable emoting in a place where it wasn't the norm.

I spent a lot of my life holding back my cries, and I want to change that because it's not good for me.

I internalize everything, keep everything inside. I'm not used to spilling my guts, and when you have to do that on film to make a point, it's hard. It's rough. I don't think it's as easy as people think.