Melissa Leo Quotes

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Melissa Leo

Profession : Actress

Birth : September 14, 1960

I haven't had a lot of experience with glamour. I've never had to mask myself, as many now not-so-young actresses have had to do. Female actors in that regard have a different lot in life than male actors.

Melissa Leo

I think this notion of acting and glamour is getting in everybody's way.

Melissa Leo

Supporting actors are the support. You can't make a building without support. You can't buy dinner without support.

Melissa Leo

I think there has only been one time in my entire career that I've ever gone back to shoot a scene. And it was a scene that, when we were shooting it, we knew that it wasn't working. We knew there was a disagreement between the actor and director. So, we went back.

Melissa Leo

Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living.

Melissa Leo

Acting is the business of truth, so that we can see ourselves reflected back and learn.

Melissa Leo

I think the funny thing about acting for me - and I hold it in a very holy, spiritual way - not to be overly fundamentalist about it, but it's that important to me - is that it is an ancient healing art.

Melissa Leo

To get the hippie out of certain characters is probably the most difficult thing for me. I was not a hippie by choice but by birth.

Melissa Leo

My mom was a '70s mom. She paved a road that no one had yet walked.

Melissa Leo

Ever since Marilyn Monroe was transformed from one of the prettiest girls you could ever hope to see into an icon, everyone has been trying to repeat that icon. And now the entire industry is filled with, and by and large run by, wannabes.

Melissa Leo

My body has done for me all these years things I couldn't ever even dreamt to do for characters. It's a tool, molecularly speaking, and I need to take care of it.

Melissa Leo

I do get a fair amount of scripts; I got 'Frozen River' kinda just that way. I have a hard time turning my back on anybody who says they have something for me.

Melissa Leo

I got none. I mean, I have no religion. I like the quote unquote 'Virgin Mary,' but no Catholicism.

Melissa Leo

That's what acting is. You're not alone. It's reacting. That's what we do.

Melissa Leo

You ask me a question. I have a blank mind. You ask me a question, and the question is informed, and you're interested, and now my mind starts popping. That's what conversation is. That's what communicating is.

Melissa Leo

I am that lucky woman who has been living my life all my life. Anything can happen now. Anything. And it will be only whip cream and delightful things. Even in the conflict and the hardship.

Melissa Leo

Acting, it's hit or miss. Make them laugh, make them cry; hopefully they have a little entertainment.

Melissa Leo

I rarely know too much about anything I'm getting involved in.

Melissa Leo

I do wish everyone would call me Leo. It's not that I don't like Melissa. But the more I hear it called out, the worse it sounds.

Melissa Leo

If I'm going to get an ice cream cone two or three times a week, then it's a pleasure. No guilt.

Melissa Leo