Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.
Allow the diversity to exist. There is nothing wrong with it. Hell, we put up with the religious right-we can put up with transgendered human beings.
Any dissatisfaction is with my own work.
Anytime you're involved in the moviemaking process you have those terrified moments. When you see the first rough cut of a movie, you look at it and think, Oh my God.
At a certain age, death becomes familiar to you-or a loss becomes familiar-the tragedies that are more commonplace in life.
Because Shakespeare's language is so expansive, we're under this misconception that it's difficult. But I discovered that it's easy because it's so brilliantly written. The words are perfect, and the language is intelligent and very emotional.
Can you go past the external, and actually see to the heart of somebody? Whether you are talking about disfigurement, or illness, or disease, or insanity, or whatever.
Families survive, one way or another. You have a tie, a connection that exists long after death, through many lifetimes.
Feature films have become extremely limited in their scope.
For me, nothing has ever taken precedence over being a mother and having a family and a home.
How people can justify shooting a doctor who performs abortions and yet be so rabidly pro-life?
How tough are we judging our family, especially our parents? How hard are you on judging your children? We are much more judgmental of our parents than our parents are of us.
I always wanted to do more comic roles, but I never got offered them.
I am always a little reluctant to say, This is male, this is female. This is feminine, this is masculine. To me, it's all in the area of humanity.
I am tortured when I am away from my family, from my children. I am horribly guilt-ridden.
I did King Kong and returned to New York and was back studying acting and was cast in The Postman Always Rings Twice.
I don't feel I need to worry about career choices. I never did.
I had never done Shakespeare before, but I don't think you can be an actor and not do it. There were moments when I thought, I'm just not going to be able to pull this off.
I hate Bush, I despise him and his entire administration.
I have been a waitress, and I was a damn fine waitress too, let me tell you.
I know some couples don't like to work together, but I've always found it easy working with Sam.
I like to work in costumes, makeup, and hair that allow me tremendous freedom.
I love being a mother. I loved being a daughter, a sister, a wife. I love being a woman with men. I love having given birth.
I never felt like I belonged in Minnesota when I was growing up there. That's why I was out the door as soon as I turned 18.
I never fit in anywhere, I'm telling you the truth.
I never think of the future. I never imagine what comes next.
I wonder how it is that some directors these days have no sense of how to make actors feel like they can do anything, and that it will all be all right.
I worked on my voice for Sweet Dreams, but only to match my speaking voice to Patsy's actual singing voice. That was my way into that character.
I've been thinking a lot about next year, which will be the first time in 25 years that I don't have a child at home.
I've got nothing left to lose at this point. The work I've done is out there.
I've known transsexuals. I thought about researching it, and actually talking to a woman who would have experienced this.
In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on.
In one scene, I had these big cones on my hands and these spikes coming out of my head, my face painted in this bizarre kind of Kabuki way. It felt very weird. Too much for this simple Minnesota girl.
It comes down to something really simple: Can I visualize myself playing those scenes? If that happens, then I know that I will probably end up doing it.
It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating.
It is an immoral war that they are beginning and we must not be silenced. We have to be able to stand up and say no.
It was easier to do Shakespeare than a lot of modern movie scripts that are so poorly written.
Look at the attitude of some of these church doctrines, and the religious right.
Military action on Iraq makes me feel ashamed to come from the United States. It is humiliating.
My one big regret was that there were no scenes that I could play with Eva Marie Saint. I hounded them. I said figure out some way, I just want to play a scene with this woman. But there was no way to make it work.
My situation was very different from Naomi Watts', who already had a career, and who was already considered an evolved actress at the time of the film.
One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.
Sam is very private-in fact, he's writing a play now and he's probably about halfway through, but he won't even tell me what it's about yet.
Sometimes parts just come along when it's the perfect time for you to do them.
Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn't know what the hell he's doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you're working with an actor who's just unbearable.
Successful model? That's a myth. The year I modeled was the most painful year of my life. Editors would always talk to you in the third person as though you were merely a piece of merchandise.
That's what really interests me more and more, the investigation of the human heart.
That's where it becomes difficult, when the language isn't there. I really began to respect language when I was working on Streetcar.
The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.
The only place I've felt was really my home is my cabin up north. There's something in the water there that connects me to that place. There's also this sense of isolation and loneliness about it that I've never been able to shake.
The role in Frances came to me at exactly the right time in my life. Whatever it was that I was experiencing, I could explore it all through that character.
The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.
There are all sorts of variations of nature. The people who are reacting are the ones who are working against nature.
There are no explanations, there are no answers.
There are some women who do make their husbands the center of their universe.
There are times when I feel I let myself down, and usually it was because I was distracted.
There has to be a movement now to really oppose what he is proposing because it's unconstitutional, it's immoral and basically illegal.
There is a sense that you get from the place that is so important to the piece. Butte's a weird place; it's a lonely place.
There was that feminist myth that we can do everything. I don't think you can.
There was this collective energy between Kathy Bates and Joan Alien and me. The way it just fell into place was perfect.
There's that collective unconscious out there that you're able to tap into. The year I did Country, a few other films about families losing their farms came out.
This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural.
This last King Kong also came out right before Christmas. It was haunting because it brought back to me what it was like being in the eye of that hurricane in 1976 when our King Kong was released.
To my experience, it is the role of the mother to try to make everything all right for everyone.
To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership.
To stay interested in acting, I have to keep trying stuff I've never done before.
To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you're in New York, it's terrible.
To work with a director that has emotional commitment and passion toward the characters, and the piece, and the experiences, it only enriches your work.
TV is sort of the only way to go for an actress my age to make a decent salary; with independent films, you just can't.
We are not the originators of the story. I think it's actually the opposite when you're an actor. You're telling somebody else's story.
What do you do when somebody you've loved for 25 years suddenly becomes someone else?
When I am home for like a two-year stretch, I get antsy, because I want to work.
When I was taking acting classes, my coach said to me about Frances Farmer, If they ever get around to making a film of it, you should think about doing it.
Wings of Desire, that whole movie to me was like a long poem. It was so visually beautiful and so strange and kind of unsettling.
Yes, and you should question your government.
Born at 11:00am-CST
Has had long time relationship with actor Sam Shepard (1982-present).
Lange has three children - Alexandra, b. 1981 (whose father is Mikhail Baryshnikov), Hanna and Walker.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#64). [1995]
She is a big supporter for rights of the Monks of Nepal.
Lived in Minnesota with Sam and their children for a few years, but now living in New York (2004).
Between modeling jobs, she waitressed at the Lion's Head in Greenwich Village.
In 1970s Manhattan, Lange was represented by Wilhelmina Models, the same agency that later discovered Gia Carangi.
Her interpretation of the pushed-to-the-limit Cora in the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) was partially inspired by the downbeat life of B-movie actress Barbara Payton. In a Rolling Stone interview, Lange mentioned how she thought her character might have first drifted to Hollywood as an aspiring starlet, and costar Jack Nicholson gave her Payton's lurid, tell-all autobiography "I Am Not Ashamed" to look over on the set. Coincidentally, Lange and the blonde Payton were both born in Cloquet, Minn.
She is one of the elite ten thespians to have been nominated for both a Supporting and Lead Acting Academy Award in the same year for their achievements in two different movies. The other nine are Fay Bainter, Teresa Wright, Barry Fitzgerald (he has been nominated in both categories for the same role in the same movie), Sigourney Weaver, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter, Julianne Moore and Jamie Foxx.
Beat Meryl Streep for the role of Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (1985), according to Streep. Streep said it was one of the few if not the only role she ever went after. Then later said that she couldn't however, imagine the movie without her (Lange).
Measurements: 34B-22-34 (modeling in Paris in 1973), 36C-24 1/2-35 (in 1990), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2001 (2000 season) for Best Actress for her performance in "Long Day's Journey into Night" at the Lyric Theatre.
Attended the Guthrie Theater Drama School at the prestigious Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Received the Anton Chekhov Fine Arts Award.
Daughter Shura (Alexandra) Baryshnikov, whose father is Mikhail Baryshnikov, graduated from Marlboro College in Vermont, the same college that Chris Noth attended in the 70s. [2003]
Is of Polish and Finnish descent
Her performance as Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) is ranked #85 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
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