Joanna Cassidy Quotes

One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.

Making a transition to the adult acting industry was pretty smooth for me, and I had a great balance and a great opportunity not to do just children shows.

The hard part for me was being an Olympic gold medalist and having that persona; you don't see too many Olympic gold medalists go into acting. It's actually even more difficult. You're not taken very seriously, and you're looked at in a different light, so it was kind of hard for me to go straight from Olympics into acting.

Any actor or actress that tells you that they don't watch their stuff is lying.

The fact of the matter is that we're all aging, and there's this stigma that older actresses don't work as much as younger actresses, and I don't think that's true anymore.

I don't want to be known as a sex symbol. There's a great stigma that goes with that tag. I want to be a Sam Elliott.

When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots,' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not.

People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.

I walk into a restaurant, and people stare as though I've just landed from another planet. Every time I walk out in public, it's like the alien freak show has arrived. It does have its advantages. I hardly ever get bothered by the paparazzi, probably because of some of the more edgy characters I've played in movies.

You know how many times I have to witness the transition from, 'Oh, get away from that thug,' to, 'Oh, wait a minute, that's the guy from 'Weeds'! Hey, can I shake your hand?'

Obviously, I pay for the fact I was an actress once. But it was a job like any other, because I never did anything scandalous.

I wouldn't want to be known as Mr Depression, but I found that when I did dip a toe in the water and talk about it, the response from the public was incredible.

I have been acting for almost 20 years now. At first it changed in my focus and how much I wanted to act. When I was younger, it was so much fun, and I really wanted it, but it was not competitive. Then I became a teenager and it became kind of competitive and not as much fun. I pulled back and I got lazy about it, where I was like, "Yeah, I guess, I'll do small parts in cool movies," but I wasn't really trying to say anything.

I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me.

I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor.

In order to put it into perspective, as an actor, it's super hard to get on a TV show. If you get on one, it's super hard for that show to be reasonably successful. All of that, on paper, seems pretty special. It's the sum of the parts, really. To roll the dice and come up with this particular show is pretty fortunate. I'm very happy about Silicon Valley series. It's changed everything for me.

It's like the psychiatrists themselves are buying into that stupid belief that therapy is something to hide.

The succession of cheerful, period musicals I made, plus Oscar Levant's widely publicized remark about my virginity, contributed to what has been called my "image", which is a word that baffles me. There never was any intent on my part either in my acting or in my private life to create any such thing as an image.

I first came to LA auditioning during pilot season. I didn't really know anyone. The only people I'd meet were the girls I was up against at auditions. It wasn't the friendliest bunch.

No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.

I went from everyone saying, "She-can't-act-she-can't-act-she-can't-act," to an Oscar nomination. So there was something quite sublime about that!

If you show up in L.A. with your shirt inside out or socks mismatched, people start putting change in your cup.

I'd really like people to see me as a real actress, which I am, but they don't. It's hard to get them to see me as a musician, they just see me as a hanger-on to the Stones, which is not what I am at all. It's a good idea, and if something like that would turn up I could do a whole television show. I've thought about playing a landlady, sort of a mad '60s lady, this absolutely insane character. I would love it. It's a great idea.

By telling my own story, I hope to help remove the stigma. It never should be something to hide.

I've definitely grown, and I think I've done enough stuff that people might look at me only as Veronica Mars. But honestly, I really don't mind if they do.