Mary Steenburgen quotes:

I know this is kind of corny, but we thought about renewing our vows again because I think my mom would really love it if we did that in Arkansas, where I came from.

I'd already made the decision before I'd even read it-just because it was John Sayles. Then when I read it, the themes were actually themes that have been a big part of my life.

There's just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.

I take the fact that films cost a lot of money very seriously, but once in a while to have somebody say, This is a big scene, take your time with it, is important. That's John Sayles.

Anything to do with the South resonates with me, because I'm Southern.

Dancing in the strip club, Not the dancing, but the being naked was excruciatingly scary for me.

I studied with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I was in the last class to study with him before he had his larynx removed, so I actually remember the sound of his voice. He was an incredible teacher.

I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.

There's a certain arrogance to an actor who will look at a script and feel like, because the words are simple, maybe they can paraphrase it and make it better.

I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.

I was this person with this weird last name from New York that no one had ever heard of. But my screen test I guess, according to him, was the best. So I got the part, which was incredible.

It just seemed like a lot of my work centered around England for a number of years.

People that want it to just be funny should not despair, because there is so much true crazy comedy coming up.

It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks.

Ain't no money like music money, because music money don't stop.

I have loved by far the majority of the people I've worked with and the experiences I've had.

I love being in the business I'm in-I do love being a part of a group of people that work well together. I love it when there's a connection.

I loved working with Malcolm [McDowell]. He's been such an important person in my life. I mean, not just as someone I was married to, which is huge, and the father of my children, which is even bigger, but also as a friend and an inspiration and somebody who probably helped to fuel something that all my reading as a child had already started, which was a love of England and the world of the theater over there, which I became involved with through him and probably because of him.

I still try to do what I've always said I would do, which is say yes to the things that make my heart beat faster, particularly if there's something scary about it.

I think I did a couple of test commercials that didn't even make it on the air. That's how little I had really done. I knew almost nothing about the camera. In fact, I actually did know nothing about the camera.

I think it's very important for everyone in America to realize right now the state of our country, not just on this issue but on a lot of issues, that it is time to get active again. People have just sat back and just sort of said, oh, let somebody else do it for a long time, and we're seeing what's happening to the country, even freedom of speech. It's not going well. So I think this is a real opportunity for people to see, yes, if you do get out and you do get active, there are other people there. You just have to seek them out.

I wanted it to be a wonderful combination of being able to dance a little bit, not being especially good, but also playing a character who says the line, "I love to dance".

I'd never studied film. I had movies that I loved and movie stars that I looked up to, but I really had not seen a lot of the great classic films that he felt like he wanted me to see before I took on such a huge role.

It was a few days later I came out to Hollywood for a screen test, and so did a lot of other people. So, I really didn't think I would get it. I was definitely the one that was least likely to get it, because everyone else was an already established star.

We tend to love things that are left of center anyway.

I love horses, and I love all of it. The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them. And I know they're rare for actors to get to do, and they're even more rare for women to get to do, so I really think I was drinking in the experience on so many levels.