Quotes

I'd rather have a small part in a movie I love than a bigger part in one I don't care about.

Well, I've always admired Margaret Rutherford. Like her, I'd like to play Miss Marple when I'm eighty.

I'm having a wonderful time producing. There are good producers and bad producers. I've learned the hard way what not to do. The ultimate aim is to produce things I'm not actually in. I'm not looking for vehicles for myself. It's not a vanity company.

Some of the most intense affairs are between actors and characters. There's a fire in the human heart and we jump into it with the same obsession as we have with our lovers.

I'd rather work with a first-time director who's passionate about the material. I've done enough movies with old and jaded people who are just like "Let's get this over with".

In Hollywood, if you are a man and speak your mind openly, you're considered a man in full. But if you are a woman and do the same, you're nothing but an annoying bitch.

Usually, all Hollywood wants you to do is what you just did. After The Ice Storm (1997), I was offered a thousand "Ice Storms" and so on. You always get offered the same thing again and again, if you're not very careful. It's up to you to swing back and forth.

These deep sea trawlers are operating beyond the reach of the law. It's up to all of us to change that.

Most people think somebody, somewhere is looking out for the deep oceans, but they aren't.

I've lost a lot of roles because of my height. I'm 6 feet 3 inches in heels. Producers are short and I was never their sexual fantasy. As for actors, if I enter a room and an actor stands up then immediately gets self-conscious and sits back down, I hear myself saying, "This job isn't for me". I once offered to paint my shoes on my bare feet to get one part because it made me appear shorter.

I don't have ambitions, I believe in taking what comes. I have that philosophy about life in general. I go in and try to transform it into the best it can be.

It took me a while to let my hair down in the business because I was kind of a shy person. I was from New York and never really felt at ease in Hollywood. I don't really now either but I don't care, it's not important that I do. Filmmakers find me or I find them.

[1992: on the possibility of performing in a fourth Alien movie] I am sure there will eventually be an Alien 4, it just won't have me in it.

[1992: working on Alien³ (1992)] Okay, the crew have not enjoyed being here until ten o'clock at night, but you know, that's the way it is.

[1992: on Alien³ (1992)] [David] Fincher is very dry. He is the only director I can think of who can come up with so many jokes, considering the pressure he has been under.

[on hoping to do another Alien movie] I could definitely kick that alien's ass again. And while I can't speak for them, I think Fox, once you're 60, you're not going to be starring in an action movie. I think it's too bad that that's the case. I would have liked to do one last story where we go back to the planet, where Ripley's history is resolved. But I do feel like her story is unfinished.

[on The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)] It was a happy experience. Mel Gibson was quite happy for me to wear four-inch heels if I wanted and Peter Weir gave me a sense of film I hadn't had before.

[on her role as a student activist] Napalm was invented at Stanford University, so one of the reasons we were protesting was to make sure that didn't continue. I think we stopped the university and we helped stop that war.

[on her television series Political Animals (2012)] I was offered this show just as I was realizing that TV was a cool place to work. A series can really take the time to build and layer and tell a different kind of story. It's delicious. It's like a stew instead of a little vegan meal.

[on her television series Political Animals (2012)] When I finally got to this material, to my great surprise, I felt I had been eating salad for a number of years and was finally offered a big, juicy hamburger. Because it's so different from what's going on in movies, which are dominated by effects and action and comic-book characters. To sink my teeth into these relationships has been just fantastic.

I had such great teachers in high school who made me feel like I could do anything. Then I go to Yale, where these drama teachers made me feel like shit--if I had any advice for young people, it would be "Don't listen to teachers who say, 'You're really not good enough'." Just teach me. Don't tell me if you think I'm good enough or not. I didn't ask you. Teachers who do that should be fired.

I changed my name when I was twelve because I didn't like being called Sue or Suzie. I felt I needed a longer name because I was so tall. So what happened? Now everyone calls me Sig or Siggy.

[on the changing approach to action roles by female actors] There isn't that thing that used to drive me crazy whenever I read the part: those scenes where the woman stops being effective and has a little breakdown to show you she's still a female entity. Now they just get on with it.

I'd send out an intergalactic invitation to other species. I guarantee they would not be like the aliens in the movies I did. I think if they can get here, they could be charming. Stephen Hawking said aliens would come for our resources. Well, I don't know what planet he's talking about, we don't have any resources to give them! We're plundering our own planet. Unless garbage and plastic is something they need, in which case, we could work out a great deal.

[when asked about the great chemistry between her character, Ripley, and Hicks (Michael Biehn) in Aliens (1986)] He's such a great guy, Michael, and he's so wonderful in this part and I think the part of his is just a beautifully written part of this very cool, you know... marine with great heart and strength and intelligence... in Neill Blomkamp's [unproduced Aliens (1986)] sequel you'll see a lot more of them together. So, you guys, what would you like to see? [addressing a cheering crowd during the 1st Alien Day, 04/26/16]

[on working with Roman Polanski on Death and the Maiden (1994)] I'm glad it wasn't my first film. He was tough, and he wasn't there to make us feel better. 'Grow up, get real, be an adult' - that was the continual subtext. But I think he may be the best actor's director I've ever worked with. The first day of rehearsals, he sat us down and read us the entire script, taking all the parts. Stuart [Stuart Wilson] looked on, horrified. But I tend to agree with Ben [Ben Kingsley], who said that he prefers it when a director gives him a narrow target - he finds it liberating. And, of course, it depends on who's giving the line readings. Most directors won't even try - they're unwilling to put themselves on the spot like that. But Roman does you the high honor of directing, of thinking it through, right in front of your eyes.