Anjelica Huston Quotes
Actress
In 1969, when I was still living in London, I had gone with some friends to see 'Easy Rider' in a movie theater in Piccadilly Circus and had returned alone some days later to see it again. It was Jack's combination of ease and exuberance that had captured me from the moment he had come on-screen.
I think it is easier to hear my voice than see myself onscreen, particularly as the years progress. Watching myself onscreen becomes less and less enthralling.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' is such a powerful book, and 'Love in the Time of Cholera' is so strangely, brilliantly optimistic.
My father, John Marcellus Huston, was a director renowned for his adventurous style and audacious nature.
I spent quite a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror. Nearby, there was a stack of books. My favorites were 'The Death of Manolete' and the cartoons of Charles Addams. I would pretend to be Morticia Addams. I was drawn to her. I used to pull my eyes back and see how I'd look with slanted eyelids.
I must confess I love female writers: Jane Austen, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Willa Cather, Dawn Powell, Joan Didion. I grew up on the Bronte sisters, and Daphne du Maurier.
Some people had fathers who were bankers or farmers, my father made films, that's how I saw it. As for the movie stars, they were just around, some of them were friends, others weren't, it was all just a part of my everyday life.
I don't see myself ever retiring, unless it's for something that I like better, and so far I like directing a lot but I don't see the necessity to retire from anything unless there's a really great alternative.
I read James Joyce's short story 'The Dead,' and I love that movie for many reasons. It was the last film I made with my father, and it's emotional for me as well as a movie I'm proud of.
You have to have patience and confidence that your things will let you know where they need to go. Particularly artwork. Paintings will tell you where they want to be.
I have two new nephews and a new niece this year, so I have plenty of kids that I can spend time with.
I do like the ocean wave, actually. I'm born under the sign of Cancer - the sign of the crab - so I like coastal areas and sunny beaches and such - although not the wide-open and deep seas.
I am a person whose father had no religion but who went to the nuns for a couple of years. And I think I'm the same: On one hand, I pray; on the other hand, I don't believe. I am constantly between the two.
I had one nanny who made me sit in front of a bowl of porridge for three or four days running when I refused to eat it. I remember being very unhappy about that.
I think all actors - they'll hate me for saying this - but we are babies. We like to be loved, and we'll do anything if we're loved.
I like it when you read a script and there's the part that you show to the other characters and then there's the part that only the audience knows.
Going back to Ireland involves at least six to seven emotional breakdowns for me per day.
I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go into relationships as a needy person. Better to go in with a full deck.
I'm not all that big on rides. I sort of like bumper cars but I don't really go to Disneyland all that much unless if have nieces and nephews or people to take.
I know certainly, when one job draws to a close, that I feel I'm simply never going to work again. No one will ever want me for anything ever again. I think that's a vulnerable moment in every actor's life, and it happens every time you finish a film.
I'm not really big on slapstick humor. I like gentle humor.
Oh, all kinds of lunacy happens in Ireland, all kinds of lunacy.
I'm very fond of doing movies where men fight over me. I don't get to do enough.
My biggest ambition is never to be bored. I'm not aggressive enough to strongly run after being an actress.
It's still possible to find pockets of old Dublin - but its becoming more and more rarified.
During the four years I had spent in New York, I had achieved top status as a model and had worked for the best photographers and designers in the world. I had grown used to hearing that I was exotic and high-fashion.
It was great to work in Ireland because it's such a beautiful country, but it's not particularly easy to film in because the weather changes all the time.
Where there is age there is evolution, where there is life there is growth.
I've always thought with relationships, that it's more about what you bring to the table than what you're going to get from it. It's very nice if you sit down and the cake appears. But if you go to the table expecting cake, then it's not so good.
I think most actors like to be liked.
People often think that looking in the mirror is about narcissism. Children look at their reflection to see who they are. And they want to see what they can do with it, how plastic they can be, if they can touch their nose with their tongue, or what it looks like when they cross their eyes.
I don't believe in privacy. I mean, I like the idea of privacy, but I don't believe that it happens anymore. I think privacy is something, I am afraid, we seem to be waving goodbye to.
It's the nature of an actor to have to use sense memory.
I loved working with Stephen Frears. He's a really fantastic director. He knows what he wants and how to get it.
I think women like to conquer hearts. Men like to conquer countries.
If you're in a situation where someone's mistreating you, I think it's your duty to speak out.
I was a lonely child. My brother Tony and I were never very close, neither as children nor as adults, but I was tightly bound to him. We were forced to be together because we were really quite alone. We were in the middle of the Irish countryside, in County Galway, in the West of Ireland, and we didn't see many other kids.
I was very excited to do 'The Witches.' It was with one of my favorite directors, Nick Roeg, and I loved his work from 'Don't Look Now' and 'Eureka.' So I was very excited to work with him. The story was a very subversive fairy tale by Roald Dahl, and a fantastic part.
When you don't have a nine-to-five job, and you're with somebody who gets a tremendous amount of attention, it's not that you resent it - it's that you have all that extra time to think about it.
I wanted to be like Jo March in 'Little Women.' I wanted to be married to a man who would give me lots of sons.
When you're in your twenties, you're made of expectations, and when they're shattered, you don't know how to behave. The fact is if you react really outraged, you fear that you'll get dropped and feel even more terrible. But there's only a certain amount you can put up with before you become obnoxious in your own eyes, right?
Beautiful things comfort; they bring a real clarity and ease. We have to continue to make our environments beautiful - it's sort of like a prayer. If you surround yourself with beautiful things, you have a better life - one with more oxygen.
I'm happy to do voice-overs. I always have a good time doing them. I like to explore vocal nuance and accents and different people, different personalities. In a way, it is a lot more freeing than having your face up there.
The idea that women are actually getting some jobs - whoopee. I can't say that I celebrate it without a hint of cynicism, because I think of how easily things can drop away and go back to the same old routine of being a boys' show. But I think it's a wonderful thing that women are getting to direct more.
I was an avid reader as a child because we didn't have television in Ireland until the mid-'60s.
There's a moment in one's life when you should really be de-accessorizing instead of making more collections.