Shirley Eaton Quotes

I think it is important to make sure that I have my real life as well, because Hollywood can certainly seem like an alternate reality sometimes.

I think diva is an inevitable outcome of the industry, and I don't think it reflects on the person at all. You take a normal human being, and basically, for 24 hours, seven days a week, apart from sleeping, you introduce them to places and things almost every minute that are brand new.

With the mega-fame came the mega-downfall - you know, with the press and everything - and at a young age, it was very stressful to me.

I have a lot of trouble understanding how people see me as a celebrity. I work 14 hours a day, and then I just want to talk to my family, see the people I love, pet my dog, and go to bed. I'm not looking to be best friends with or emulate a celebrity.

I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'd be dead.'

It took me a good decade of hiding in my house and not going outside to even, like, get my arms around this idea of celebrity, where suddenly people are looking for you to pick your nose or get a shot of you kissing some woman. It's a very discombobulating thing.

I'd rather live my life off screen and give only a certain amount of energy to the work.

One of my friend calls me 'lost to showbiz', but that's only because I don't go for a drink as often as he'd like, because I'm always working. I've met very few famous people who are lost to showbiz - I have met some, mind.

I thought Britney Spears was absolutely marvelous in the beginning. But now I think she's gone off the deep end.

I'm a fan of movies and television shows, and I don't expect anything from actors and actresses, or anyone, but good work. What they do. I don't feel like I deserve a piece of their personal life, or even what they think about the work they do.

In fact, people think you have to be stressed to be successful. They think if you are not stressed, something is wrong with you.

I think that the working hours and star pressures pushed a lot of people into drugs in those days. And there seemed to have been a lot of alcoholism.

I don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker.

The last couple of years were hell. Like, I can't even tell you, it was so hard. I didn't know how to handle it. But I think I'm in a much better place now, because I stepped away for a second and took a breath. Hollywood is a funny place. It offers so much, but it can also take a lot away from you.

I have to talk about my movies. I have to give interviews to promote what I'm doing. But no one really knows my personal life. And if you don't have a personal life I feel bad for you.

It is my conviction that movie stars are not entitled to any rights of privacy.

I feel sorry for the young people today. I think there's too much paparazzi and not enough protection.

I think a lot of times, when you're working in this business, and you're both actors or somehow involved in the industry, you can get torn in different directions and be on completely opposite schedules.

I think the level of criticism you're under is never healthy. I think that's why lots of people in Hollywood end up in rehab. There are the ups and downs. I was never a fan of the attention.

Every year you work in Hollywood takes a year off your soul.

It got to the point where I started hiding because I didn't want to be photographed. (On living with Robert Mapplethorpe)

Madonnas got one big choice. Take a couple of years off and become a human being.

Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can't think of any successful actresses who didn't play the game. There's a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.

The bit I love is I really love acting, really, and the circus of being a celebrity is something I'm sort of not interested in. I find it strange.

We're interested by public personas and private personas, otherwise we wouldn't put on with actors rambling on with the same kind of stuff, over and over again, saying variations of the same thing. I'm always amazed by how fascinated people still are by actors because it's the same version of events that actors describe, all the time.