Quotes

  • [On auditions and meetings] – The miserable ones are the ones where all the girls auditioning are in the same room. There’s no talking in those rooms. I’ve tried. Yesterday I had to do an interview. I was in a horrible mood. I couldn’t think of basic words. I could see my publicist in the background, mouthing things to say. They want you to be likable all the time, and I’m just not.
  • I’m excited to be seen as sexy. But not slutty.
  • Where are the Robert Redfords and Paul Newmans of my age group? I love James Franco, but where’s the next James Franco? Where are the hunks who can act?
  • There are actresses who build themselves, and then there are actresses who are built by others. I want to build myself.
  • … I have this feeling of protectiveness over characters I want to play. I worry about them-if someone else gets the part, I’m afraid they won’t do it right; they’ll make the character a victim or they’ll make her a villain or they’ll just get it wrong somehow. … When I get like that, anything’s possible.
  • [On her role in “Winter’s Bone”] – I’d have walked on hot coals to get the part. I thought it was the best female role I’d read – ever. I was so impressed by Ree’s tenacity and that she didn’t take no for an answer. For the audition, I had to fly on the redeye to New York and be as ugly as possible. I didn’t wash my hair for a week, I had no makeup on. I looked beat up in there. I think I had icicles hanging from my eyebrows.
  • When I first got to New York, my feet hit the sidewalk and you’d have thought I was born and raised there. I took over that town. None of my friends took me seriously. I came home and announced, ‘I’m going to move to New York,’ and they were like ‘OK.’ Then when I did, they kept waiting for me to fail and come back. But I knew I wouldn’t. I was like, ‘I’ll show you.’
  • I never felt like I completely, 100% understood something so well as acting.