Elizabeth Pena Quotes

A lot of people in the movie business don't have a point of reference for me; nobody really knows who I am.

Its not really about the movie business, it's about staying in the picture.

Often, in the movie business, they need somebody who will garner box office because they need to pay for the movie. So the people who are in movies that make a lot of money are the people who most often get cast in studio pictures. In my career, I've never been a box office name.

I couldn't be a conventional commercial actor without being a star-kid. That kind of a big film needs a certain mounting, a little paraphernalia around you. And nobody would give me that.

I like the action business. I like the action movies. I guess Hollywood wants to see me do action. So I am down. I like it.

The movie business is a big gamble.

Foxes was a movie that didn't do a lot of business but it didn't do too badly critically and eventually they offered me other things. The interesting thing was that next I tried a film called Star Man, which Michael Douglas was producing.

I have the highest respect for stars and auteur directors. But I don't want to work with people who only invite me to the preview. We want to be in the collaborative movie business, not the financing one.

Simultaneously, the movie business now experiments with a colorblind approach to casting.

Because books are written by individuals, it has often made knowledge seem like the product of individuals, even though everybody has always understood that individuals are working within the social network.

I'm probably the only person who goes to work and says 'Wow, it's really nice here and sweet,' even in the competitive movie business.

Because of who I am, when I sit at a poker table, I meet people who engage me in conversation, not only about poker, but also about the movie business and about the world of celebrities.

I didn't know box office was a thing you could possess but I don't have it. I go up for lovely roles and people with this nebulous thing called box office get them so there isn't much I can do about that unless you know where I can get some box-office myself!

To get a movie star, you have to give them two hours of screen time.

I'm not in the business of trying to be a celebrity. I like entertaining and being in movies. I like when people leave a movie and talk about it with friends. My biggest struggle is the press... its an odd thing and something I've had to learn a lot about.

Sociometric status is a powerful determinant of health.

I have several times suggested that what I call the “Establishment” in this country is today more powerful than ever before. By “Establishment” I do not mean only the centers of official power – though they are certainly part of it – but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised ... the “Establishment” can be seen at work in the activities of, not only the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl Marshal, but of such lesser mortals as the Chairman of the Arts Council, the Director-General of the BBC, and even the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, not to mention dignitaries like Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

There is a certain amount of commerce in the film industry in as much as you have value, and for a moment, your value goes up, then it all disappears again.

Many, if not most, career opportunities come to you through people you know. So the more people you know, the more opportunities you have. Improving your social network is a great example of a system for moving from lower odds to better odds without having a specific goal.

My grandfather, who is English, was a member of a gentleman's club called the Caledonian, which you can only be a member of if you have Scottish lineage.

I took some time off after 'Titanic' because I needed to let the dust settle and recharge my battery. I felt, 'OK, you've been given a tremendous opportunity; what are you going to do with it? Now your name can finance movies that you do want to do.'

I'm not clique-y.

I wish I had been born 20 years earlier, so I could have been in the movie business in the 1970s.

The key thing about us is that we all belong to multiple tribes. Even if we are predisposed into dividing the world into 'us' and 'them,' it's incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who is an 'us' and who is a 'them' at any given moment.

Hollywood is silly sometimes.