Laura Dern Quotes

I get letters from people saying one of the things they like best about what I've done since 'Bewitched' is that they never know what I'm going to do next.

But as an actor you do want to challenge yourself and step outside what you have done in the past and that what I like to do, I like to jump around and try different things and stretch myself.

When you can surprise yourself, you're truly acting.

I think the best actors do both. I think they fulfill what you want them to do, in terms of the vision for the whole piece. And then they always bring something that does surprise you and shock you.

I love the element of surprise, throwing people off of what they think they know about what I can do and who I am. I just want to keep doing that.

I want to keep looking for roles that have an element of surprise.

As an actor, I still have to remind myself of daring to let go and not to repeat myself.

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

That's the tricky thing these days: being able to surprise people.

My whole career is based on taking a left turn after each film and doing the opposite of what I've just done.

It's always better to shock people and change people's expectations than to give them exactly what they think you can do. It's not unexpected for me to be in a comedy film anymore; I'm no longer the underdog in that world. Not that I'm great or good at it or anything, it's just that I've done a bunch of them, so you're not shocked.

Even if I play a similar role to one I've played before, I will never play it the same, I'll always try to do something different with it.

I always want to surprise myself, more than anybody else.

As an actor, you always have to reinvent yourself or you end up in the gutter somewhere. It's my job to always change people's minds. I've known that for a long time and I've had to do it.

I think it's an actor's responsibility to change every time. Not only for himself and the people he's working with, but for the audience. If you just go out and deliver the same dish every time... it's meat loaf again... you'd get bored. I'd get bored.

As an actor, you need to be versatile. You need to challenge yourself.

When I look for the next project, it's always about, 'Is it going to push me out of my comfort zone? Am I doing something different? Am I working with people who are passionate about what they're doing?' At the end of the day, if I'm going to be bored on set, then I'm not gonna be happy.

I don't like to reduce a role to fit me. The challenge to me is to expand to it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But that's the challenge of it.

I originally had opened the studio in New York to combine my two loves, music and design. And we created videos and packaging for many musicians that you know, and for even more that you've never heard of. As I realized, just like with many, many things in my life that I actually love, I adapt to it. And I get, over time, bored by them.

I don't think it's a bad thing to go out there and challenge yourself as an actor.

After doing so many different roles, if you don't stretch yourself, there's no excitement left.

Theater is about surprises and things that you haven't seen before on stage.

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

As an actor, or as a person, I like to do things that are challenging.

I like to surprise myself. I've always been attracted to projects where I don't know how they're going to turn out.