Shirley Manson Quotes

I do feel that there is a little confusion in people's minds between the real me and sitcom Miranda. I am pleased that people identify with the character, but I think they want me to be her and are disappointed that the real Miranda doesn't actually fall into graves or be that rubbish at life.

Jim Carrey, a comic genius, has a harder time overcoming the public's desire for him to be funny simply because he's so good at it.

I've never really been America's sweetheart, but for a minute I think that's what they wanted me to be.

Praise the Lord, but do me a favor, don't ever say 'Stephen Baldwin' and 'ministry' in the same sentence. I make movies, and in Hollywood, that's career suicide.

People seem to sometimes have a difficulty drawing that line between the character and the person.

'Triumph over tragedy' - how pathetic! I think people are generally freaked out that I'm multifaceted. You don't hear people saying, 'Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar - and she's blonde!'

When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully.

These days, as I am older and wiser, I realize that there is a danger in becoming an icon, as people can see you as remote and untouchable, and they are less willing to tolerate you doing things that don't fit with their preconceived idea of you.

I wouldn't wanna go out not looking like the Dolly people have come to know, because I've come to know her that way, too.

It's hard for people to differentiate between a character they see on television and a person who plays the character.

Myself, there's people saying, 'He'll never find himself in the halls of WWE.' It's a narrative that's fueled more by secondhand fan myth than what people feel.

We didn't roll credits after 'Monday Night Raw.' You know, it didn't say, 'Stone Cold Steve Austin played by Steve Austin,' so all of a sudden people think that's who and what you are 24/7, you know, 365 days a year.

Nobody is convinced that Johnny Depp goes to Walmart dressed as Sweeney Todd, but everyone expects us to.

It was new to play a woman who plays with her sincerity, and who is a seductress, a manipulator and a liar! I was able to compose a character as opposed to being very natural, so it was very interesting for me. It was great to realise that I could be this kind of real woman!

For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.

Basically it's the idea of celebrities being in the spotlight and just because you think that they should be perfect, that they're still human and they still have flaws just like everyone else. So that was the real meaning behind "Dollhouse", at least how it related to me because it's something I was annoyed with at the time.

Men still assume I must be like the girl I played in 'Emmanuelle.' John Wayne was never accused of killing people during his free time, but I'm forever stuck with the image of 'Emmanuelle.' The truth is, I should have got an Oscar for that role because I'm nothing like that woman.

Working with Jean-Claude is a lot of fun. Because he's a great actor who also happens to be a fighter. That combination doesn't usually come together anymore. Usually, you have to fight the stunt double and then act against the actor. In his case, you are fighting with a real guy. It takes a minute to get used to that. Because it doesn't happen any more.

People may never understand this - and perhaps I should give up caring whether they do or not - but the idea of me playing Superman is so far away from what I was brought up to aspire to.

I look in the mirror and I don't see a sex symbol. I just see a guy who looks like he's been beaten with a baseball bat. I mean, is this the face of a sex symbol? They say that because I work in the movies.

That to me is what my idea of film acting should be. There shouldn't be any acting. You should just be watching a real person.

I grew up on M*A*S*H and All In The Family and Cheers. And then around this time, this would have been '95, '96, I was so into Friends and Mad About You, the idea of being on a sitcom became a very real thing that I wanted. It was not so much a relief. It was really exciting. It's an amazing thing to be in front of an audience.

I'm an entertainer; I try to give the public what it wants while I'm on the screen, and I'm completely sincere about it. If I don't happen to be a laughing boy off the screen, that doesn't make me a hypocrite or a phony.

People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.

It's so easy to think that this [celebrity] is reality; that people are lining up outside just to write down what I have to say. That's not real; that's weird.