Mary Elizabeth Winstead Quotes

I was in King Lear with Sir Tom Courtenay at The Royal Exchange in Manchester. In fact, that's where I met my husband. I was playing Regan and he was playing Cornwall and together we fell in love plucking out Gloucester's eyes. It was great fun. Everyone assumes that I was Cordelia because I've got blonde hair but I was Regan and they gave me a long auburn wig. It was great, good fun.

In the summer after sixth grade, I took a class at St. Robert Bellarmine. My first role, I was the villain in a play, and I forgot all my lines. I think I cried my way through the performance.

The only time I've played a real baddy was when I was Regan in 'King Lear.'

I did a couple of plays in junior high school, maybe high school, and then I did a play in college.

I did Chicago on Broadway the year before last. That was a great opportunity and I had a blast.

I did a crazy version of 'Romeo and Juliet' once, and I played Romeo.

In school, I was Martha in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' I loved that.

I never thought I'd be right to play a Juliet-like character.

I saw 'Cats' on a school trip. I thought it was neat and a little weird. The set was cool.

I started getting on my feet and clowning around, and they ended up putting me in a play when I was 12. And I was hooked.

I'll have you know that as a young man, I spent an entire year as a woman in a world tour of 'As You Like It.' I played Celia.

When I was in high school, the drama teacher picked me to play Iago in 'Othello.'

I liked 'Brighton Beach Memoirs,' which I did with Neil Simon. I kind of was playing him, as Eugene Morris Jerome, and I played that a few times at the very beginning of my career.

When I was a senior, I did my senior class play, and that was pretty much it... It was 'The Wizard of Oz,' and I was Dorothy.

I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.

When real actors are approaching their work, we could be on a little stage somewhere, doing community theater. It's all the same. They're just trying to make the scene work. They're just trying to do the best they can and figure it out.

I've read all of Shakespeare and practiced a lot of lines. ... I am going to do Juliet first. Don't laugh. What, with what makeup, costume and camera can do, my acting will create a Juliet who is 14, an innocent virgin.

People say, "Why is it that you love to act?" And you want to say, "Well, most of acting is sitting in your trailer, either bored or worried about the scene coming up." A lot of it is about things you don't really like, so it's a wonder why acting is such a huge draw, why everyone loves it so much.

You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?

When I was 12, I was in Oliver! at a theater in Glasgow.

It's like the high school production of something you saw at Steppenwolf, with the most gifted students in drama class playing the John Malkovich and Joan Allen roles.

I've been playing these schoolgirl roles in all my movies. Every time I went to the set, it felt like I was going to school.

I really wanted to go back to the theater, the live theater. That was the thing I had never had a chance to do, even though I had trained to be a stage actress.

I certainly did plays in high school and community theater, and I want to get back on the stage.

I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn't put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you're hiding behind a character.