Penelope Keith Quotes

One of the great, truly extraordinary privileges of being an actor is to interact with individuals from all walks of life, you know, from avocations that you wouldn't ordinarily interact with or people you wouldn't ordinarily interact with.

When I first started out in the entertainment business, I made a list of people I thought it would be good to meet. Not people who could give me a job or a deal, but people who could shake me up, teach me something, challenge my ideas about myself and the world.

I don't feel isolated on a film set. In a way you do because you don't really mix with the outside world; you're just sort of working non-stop for a few months, but you've got so many people around you.

My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director.

It's amazing to be able to work with people right at the top of whatever they do... inspiring photographers and stylists with very interesting visual language. The more I do it, the more I enjoy it.

I don't relax. My main relaxation is meeting illustrators and publishers in restaurants and bars.

The biggest direct influence on my career is Ben Edlund, who gave me my first real professional break and, through his friendship and example, turned me into a writer and a more critical thinker in general.

I'm interested in working with great people and exploring great themes in different mediums.

I've never been able to say I've been influenced by a list of artists I like because I like thousands and thousands and I've been influenced in some way by all of them.

My instinct about a human being is paramount. For me, when a director has walked into my room or an assistant that I have hired, who has later gone on to become a director, is purely based on human instinct, be it Ayan Mukerji, Karan Malhotra, Punit Malhotra or Tarun Mansukhani. I am very susceptible to human energy and energy of spaces.

I write mostly in my office in the shed outside at home, but it can get very cold. I write best on the train, among people. As a writer you spend so much time away from people.

I gave Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow their first writing jobs, as well as many other untried writers who went on to great success.

One of the core reasons for creating 'Station to Station' was to provide a space for exploration and cultural friction between different mediums. It should be natural for mediums like music, film and art to cross over, and we wanted to empower that process.

As an author, you spend a lot of time by yourself in a room making clicky noises. It gets pretty insulated. You realize pretty early on in your career that even if this goes well, you could spend all your life in a room alone. Unless you pick projects that are going to get you out doing things, you're not going to actually live your life.

One of the advantages of my profession is I come into contact with many people.

Modeling gave me so many experiences, like traveling and being exposed to global cultures, but the most valuable lesson has been working with designers who truly are visionaries in their field.

You tend to meet on a more regular basis with people in your industry, and reality being what it is, you tend to meet with them at the particular level that you occupy; so that develops a fraternity relationship.

I've been really lucky to work with some really great film people in the past, but television works on a much quicker schedule, and it's the TV directors I've worked with that I looked to and became a big fan of.

When you live in New York and are an artist and are interested in people, you meet a lot of people.

One enlarges his circle of friends through contact with many people. One who limits those contacts narrows the circle and frequently his own point of view as well.

The great thing about being in this business is that you meet people, and I met Sally Struthers.

That period, doing 'Angels in America' in '94 and then filming with 'Basquiat' in '95, those were gateway years for me as an artist. Two gateways, one into the film industry and one into the world of theater, each formative to me in different, equally essential ways.

I've been so honored and so lucky to work with some amazing people. I've collaborated on amazing sets and with amazing crews.

My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhealthy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas.

I go out very rarely in Paris. If it's a fashion party at a nightclub, I wouldn't dream to go. People come to you for your work, not because you go to all their parties.