Mercedes Ruehl

"All the great roles are tough-cookie roles, They’re the women you meet and can’t forget. They’ve got stuff! They’re generally women who have met and not allowed themselves to be overcome by challenges."

"And if you can stay open through a long run and not get too rigidly identified with how youre doing certain lines, the process of discovering goes on through the length of the performance of the piece."

"I’m not sure I started out as a great mother. I think I learned how to be a good mother."

"It’s from people seeing you even in classes and talking about you that eventually your name and what you do gets known, if you care passionately enough about the art of acting."

"Obviously it’s very different because this is the great cathedral of nature, but it’s calming to my spirit and restful and refocuses you on what is beautiful and important."

"She told my son the story of Big in a wonderful way, Then she told my husband and me that she was going to give it one more year and then quit. Big saved her from that."

"Shes very open, very diligent and very gifted, she cared about the work of others, not just her own. It is not the usual ugly greed you find in some actresses today."

"It’s hard to get a job after that, People think you want more money."

"You have to keep pressing through despair."

"It may have to do with my ego, wanting to be famous, wanting to be adored, wanting to be loved. ... Maybe I associated some sort of romance with the theater."

"When you’re suddenly in the limelight, you can make a few mistakes. Success has a way of distorting people: distorting your expectations, distorting your personality, distorting your sense of your own value. It takes a very strong sense of character to not let that happen or to notice that it’s happening."

"I don’t like to go over territory that I’ve explored before. And I’d never played a peasant woman."