Rebecca hall quotes

I don't think that anyone can really understand anything until it's understood on a cellular, emotional level.

I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.

I've played an awful lot of repressed people.

You either are a good director or you're not.

My mum's American. She's from Detroit.

A good piece of art raises questions.

We cannot talk with [animals] as we can with human beings, yet we can communicate with them on mental and emotional levels. They should, however, be accorded equality in that they should receive both compassion and respect; it is unworthy of us to exploit them in any way.

If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.

To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.

My childhood was very colourful, and I am very good friends with both my parents. We have no secrets.

I read everything. I've always got a book on the go and I'm really nerdy about it, I get through books and don't remember anything about them afterwards. But I read all sorts, from classic to contemporary.

I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor. So people may choose to explore their other talents.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an actor. It has just always been an inevitability on some level.

Of course, any job is scary, but you tackle the challenges head on and hope for the best.

I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.

I think for a long time it seemed like working in an art form and being a feminist meant portraying women in a perfect, angelic light. And there's nothing feminist about that.

As I'm sure anyone who's born after the '70s' access point is - is '70s films and '70s culture and there is a kind of a paranoiac atmosphere in that time in America. Yes, it's the golden age of journalism, Watergate, and all the rest of these people making these great breakthroughs - but it's also the moment that "if it bleeds, it leads" becomes mainstream and sensationalizing the news becomes more and more the given. Checking how many numbers you're getting, whatever you can do to get more numbers.

It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.

One aspect of my mum's personality that has influenced me is her love of Hollywood and the golden era of black-and-white films.

Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.

I don't like talking about myself, if I'm honest.

One of the great things about the 'Iron Man' franchise is that they employ fascinating actors who don't necessarily do action movies. Before 'Iron Man' you didn't associate Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow with those kinds of films. There's an emphasis on repartee and wit.

Feminism is something I think about more when I watch the film, Christine, rather than when I was actually doing it, to be honest with you. But I do think it functions as a sort of interesting feministic critique, because you are seeing a woman who's resolutely incapable of behaving like the kind of woman that's acceptable at the time. She doesn't know how to play the game by everyone else's rules, and it makes you realize that actually there were rules that were functioning for a woman to be a careerist.

Whenever I'm in theatre situations I will go out of my way not to talk about my father, but in the film world I can be really proud of my family and say, 'You know what: my dad's a really, really famous theatre director,' because nobody has any idea.

There are a lot of movies about misfits that are quite cool, that kind of glamorize it on some level. I think there are fewer films, certainly with a lady at the center, about the agony of what it's like to feel like you're not accepted, and you're different, and somehow you're weird.

I suppose the reason why I like acting is because I'm curious about human nature, and the less I know about a character on the page, instinctively, in a way, the better.

I've always had horrible Valentine's Days.

A floor length backless black sequined dress would be my dream dress. As for my dream date - that would have to be a young Marlon Brando!

I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.

I've never been desperate to please my father.

Twin Peaks' is my favorite American TV show.

I was a really pretentious teenager.

You either hear the story and you're curious, and you're sort of sympathetic, or you think, "Ugh, how horrible." That's dehumanizing. How about we take that and turn Christine Chubbuck into a person and it's not about the final act, it's about her life. I felt that really strongly, and I felt a sort of deep sympathy with her. It's also why I do what I do. I want to try to make difficult people somehow relatable.

I always look for contradiction in a character.

As a child I loved ghost stories.

I used to have the most visceral response to having my photo taken. I felt like instantly bursting into tears and running out of the room. I hated all the attention, which is such a stupid thing for an actor to say.

I try and avoid thinking of strategy and I tend to stick to my gun of doing things that I like and try to avoid things that I "should" be doing, and stay true to that.

I love film acting - I'm not snobby about it. I don't think that theater acting's a more noble profession. I think they're both very important. I love both. And in my dream world, I'd get to do both forever.

There are people all over the world who like to write fan letters in the voice of their pet: 'Hello, my name is Fifi and I'm a labrador and I think you're great. Paw paw!'

I don't want to make vast generalizations about people who go into legal professions, but there are similarities in the barristers that I met and interacted with, in the sense that they tend to be highly eloquent, highly analytical, thinking people who have a very rapid-fire think-before-they-speak button, as it were.

I don't want to massively slag off Marvel, I don't. Because they have just employed a woman to be their superhero, and so hallelujah.

When I was 22, I thought I couldn't wear heels because of my height.

I think loads of people see acting, when they're kids, as these magical stories that just happen within the context of the film or the play or the cartoon or whatever they're seeing. They don't imagine that there are actually people that go and do that for a living.

I daydream about things I want to happen, but none of it is more complicated, most of the time, than just really hoping that the good parts and the well-written parts are the ones that turn up on my doorstep.

No family is sane, is it?

I'm very nerdy about my music, and I like interrogating people about what they put on playlists.

Sometimes I can spend months doing things to make sure that my instincts work correctly, but ultimately it's still instinctive.

There's always going to be a separate version of you that people will create, and you have no control over it.

You don't get roles like leading character in 'Christine' very often because people don't really like women on film to be unlikable. I think Christine is lovable, but I don't think she's likable. I think there's a fundamental difference. For me, those are the richest ones. Men have had a career of doing those kind of things.

If you choose to do both [acting and directing] on a set, than you're admitting that you understand that everyone is in it for the same goal and it's a collaborative experience. You can't really jump into being an actor, and than direct yourself. At some point, you have to be willing to accept other people's opinions. I think that's helpful. If you try to micro-manage and control all of it, than you're probably heading for disaster.

Sometimes you can incubate a character and that can take me a month just sitting on it imagining it, doing everything from sketching it to taking long walks, but sometimes you can see the character immediately. A lot of it is instinctive.

I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.

I don't think there's a single person on this planet that doesn't have a day when they feel like they're off, like they're not doing a very good job of being them. We all relate to having highs and lows. Everyone gets depressed.

I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film.

If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.

I quite enjoy cooking but I'm not consistent. I can't follow the recipe book. If something goes well, I'll never make it again, which is completely stupid. It's a one-shot kind of deal.

When we are aligned, everything can flow, and life and yoga becomes effortless.

The idea that fear can manipulate people and you can use fear in the media to get what you want is happening right now. I think it has a lot of relevance between 2017 and 70's.