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" I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke. "

Melissa Leo

Struggle

Time

Love

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" The power of television - it's so present in our lives, we don't even know how powerful it is. "

" I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor. "

Melissa Leo

Direct

Very

" Supporting actors are the support. You can't make a building without support. You can't buy dinner without support. "

" That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it. "

" I think this notion of acting and glamour is getting in everybody's way. "

" I think the funny thing about acting for me - and I hold it in a very holy, spiritual way - not to be overly fundamentalist about it, but it's that important to me - is that it is an ancient healing art. "

" Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living. "

" People often expect me to be something other than what I am. "

" Well, I don't think of myself as a feminist at all. As soon as we start labeling and categorizing ourselves and others, that's going to shut down the world. "

" I know that one of my difficulties as an actor is to try to do too much, from all those years ago when my acting took place live on a stage. It was just my shiny face there, so you've gotta be super careful how much over-expressing you're doing with your eyes and nose and so on. "

" You know, when I got started on television in the '80s, you would go to the costume department, and if you were a female they put you into a skirt. And you had a pocketbook, usually a shoulder bag. "

" The climate informs the character. "

" To play someone when the character masks their own emotions, doesn't understand their own emotions, has no release for their own emotions, and yet is full of emotion - that is a much harder character to play than someone who has somewhere to put it. "

" You have to let the costume inform you. "

" I do get a fair amount of scripts; I got 'Frozen River' kinda just that way. I have a hard time turning my back on anybody who says they have something for me. "

" Acting, it's hit or miss. Make them laugh, make them cry; hopefully they have a little entertainment. "

" Why do we have to pretend we're not in the sales game? I didn't sign on to be a salesman. I signed on to be an actor. "

" I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world. "

" Being an actor on a movie set is like going to the playground at recess. "

Melissa Leo

Going

Actor

" I can nap with hustle and bustle around me; I can nap quietly all by myself. It's something I've always been good at. "

" An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props - and actors love props - is a cigarette. There's so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It's just the greatest - ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I've been playing around with cigarettes. "

" I always wanted to play a nun, and to play the Reverend Mother was a thrill of a lifetime for me. But, generations back, my family were not churchgoers, which is an unusual thing in the United States. "

" Docudrama is not really my game, but it's interesting to play real people; it's interesting to play 'real.' "

" My mom was a '70s mom. She paved a road that no one had yet walked. "

" I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character. "

" I got none. I mean, I have no religion. I like the quote unquote 'Virgin Mary,' but no Catholicism. "

Melissa Leo

Mary

Got

" Ever since Marilyn Monroe was transformed from one of the prettiest girls you could ever hope to see into an icon, everyone has been trying to repeat that icon. And now the entire industry is filled with, and by and large run by, wannabes. "

" I'm a very lucky girl who gets to act for a living! So why sit around griping and grousing about what's not there. "

" The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking. "

" I have some close friends I keep in touch with. I knit. I watch a little too much TV. I ski, if the weather's right for that. If I can find a group of buddies, I go rock climbing. "