Maggie Gyllenhaal Quotes

Hollywood is hard on women.

It become totally untenable to me that after acting for 25 years - I've played Juliet, Cleopatra and Anne Frank - there I was, sitting in Hollywood, just waiting for somebody to want me.

There are a lot of limitations and stigmas that are placed on young actors, specifically young black actors.

I've been very lucky and been able to work, as an actress, but I'm definitely a working actress. I get a script, I audition, and then I pray.

It is frustrating to be a Black woman in the entertainment industry.

I think everyone has different challenges as a young actress in Hollywood.

In Bollywood, it's always feast or famine for an actress. That's the way of the game.

Personally, I never drink on Oscar nights, as it interferes with my suffering.

Acting is a very strange industry in that it flows in these weird ways, I'll be so busy for 6 months and then nothing for a couple months, so it's hard for me to focus and stuff.

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I'm ninety, and they won't need to paste my face with make-up.

I would say only be an actress if you genuinely feel the calling, because it's a tough profession.

Normally when people ask me what I do I say I'm an actor, and that's what I always wanted to be and that's the way I approach work even when I'm directing it.

If people offer me decent roles in good films, of course I'll take it. But I just didn't like the actor lifestyle. You end up focusing all your energy on trying to get parts you don't even want.

If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful it's worse than having a skin disease.

Actors should ACT. Not sell perfume, or write cookbooks.

I've had ups and downs but always maintained I was a working actor, which is a beautiful thing.

Gee, this isn't like I imagined it would be in the bathtub.

I hope the perception is that I'm an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.

I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor.

From university, I tried to get into the profession almost immediately, and just got kind of kicked back in London, by lots of people saying, "Well, you know, we'll need to see you in something. And the easiest way for you to get seen in something is drama school. That is the best way to get an agent."

I remember when I got the part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Jane Russell - she was the brunette in it and I was the blonde. She got $200,000 for it, and I got my $500 a week, but that to me was, you know, considerable. She, by the way, was quite wonderful to me. The only thing was I couldn't get a dressing room. Finally, I really got to this kind of level and I said, "Look, after all, I am the blonde, and it is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!" Because still they always kept saying, "Remember, you're not a star." I said, "Well, whatever I am, I am the blonde!

I always made a living as an actor when I came to California. I never had to do anything else.

Life is not what you expected it to be.

I've had a very full career in the theater, on stage, in films and on television.

I've learned a lot from doing the sitcom. I've learned so much about comedic timing. For all the movies I've done, I've played so many different roles. I love both, but I guess in my career maybe I want to stick more to film.