Vera Farmiga quotes:

I think all religions can agree on certain definitions of God and concepts of God, like God being the god of love, the great 'I am' energy.

I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

I grew up in a Ukrainian Catholic-turned-Christian household, and that is my family's faith.

I love Saturday nights with my best friend and a big bowl of pasta, wanting a good scare, something that will say, 'Listen, your life is not as bad as this. Your life can be so much worse.'

I just hate one-dimensional portrayals of religion; it's too cheap and easy to do, and ignores the nuances that go into having a belief system.

We're all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction and hatred and anxiety, it's the antithesis I think of what religion was designed to do.

I think that films about faith made for faith-based communities have a certain tactic.

It's a very different thing, religion and faith. Religion is man-made, it's man-regulated. And faith, you can define God as you wish. But I think they're two different things.

I don't have a caustic sense of humor. What I find funny, that humor comes from a much gentler place.

I can't do Los Angeles. I've always been the anti-Barbie. I don't want to be in a place where almost every woman walks around with puffy lips, little noses and breasts large enough to nourish a small country.

But I think for me, why I was drawn to the piece is, at the core of the story, it's a love story to me - between Ed and Lorraine, between these two families who are asking for help and us who are in the business of giving help.

I've never felt the breath of God - you can take that statement literally or metaphorically - more than when I was yearning for a personal, intimate connection to something bigger than me.

I, for one, am tired of seeing movies about men damaging each other.

I'm part wood nymph. I require mountains and warm, dense patches of moss to thrive.

The biggest research of all when I do a character is self-examination. You look at yourself and you ask, 'How am I similar to this person and how am I different?'

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like 'Down to the Bone,' you have the opportunity to be of service.

I didn't grow up watching film but as a Ukrainian-American, music and stories and dance are crucial.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.

I've never graced the cover of a fashion magazine.

We are all seekers in some way. There are those of us who think they have all the answers and there are those of us who may never get an answer.

I have the best husband a wife could possibly have. He's the best father my children could have.

There's no wrong way to experience a film.

Music is what our feelings sound like.

You ought to have a perspective when you're making a film.

My father instilled in me - of utmost importance and innate in me is the yearning to determine for myself - to define God, to define holiness for myself.

I think God gave us senses of humor, and we should use them.

I'm saying that the depth of exploration of the male psyche and the female psyche is uneven. I see further, deeper renderings of what it means to be a man.

When you're breastfeeding a child, you don't have the same retention as you do when you're not.

Chekhov, when it's done well and you're ready for it, can actually be quite funny.

In these times, in this harsh, rude, warring world that we live in, where most of the bloodshed is 'My god is greater than your god,' and we're fighting in the name of our god, we have to find a way to peaceably coexist, spiritually.

My personality is just innately even-keeled. I'm not such a huge daredevil. Which is not to say I'm not a passionate woman. I don't know, maybe it's my physiological makeup, but I don't like the feeling of anything in my system, other than a glass of wine now and then.

I just wanted to make sure that yes, that those horror - they worked as a genre. To me, I just wanted to be touched by the film in the way that I saw plausible. Which is the story about compassion - giving and receiving it in those desperate times of need.

I'm a full-time mom. I've never felt as prepared, as before maternity.

I listened more than I asked. There's a lot of information online, so many Youtube videos, countless interviews with all those obvious questions that were all answered for me. I just wanted to absorb her essence. I wanted to see the details, she has such mad style. I just wanted to see - the way she communicates with her hands, these gestures, her smile, how she moves through space.

I feel my fuller-bodied characters are all in the independent films I do, and in the studio productions, I have to work harder to dimensionalize the characters. And that's certainly part of the job description of an actor - that's what you're supposed to do - but you have to work harder at it in the characters that I've encountered in studio films.

Yeah, I think it's like any God-given gift. You writers have the gift of perception. If you don't use it, you're going to lose it. And it's the same thing with you [Lorraine], it's God-given.

Just because I'm telling a story about a woman losing faith is not my rebellion against what I grew up in. If anything, it really affected the way I approached the story, and in fact, approach everything. I don't judge my characters.

The nature of evil, the nature of it, it exists. It exists and I think within us we have the tools. If we have the will, we can combat it. I think the power is within us and it lies in our own conceptualization of God and positivity and compassion and love.

There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like Down to the Bone, you have the opportunity to be of service.

I have a two-year-old who just turned three, and my four-year-old just turned five. I have the same irrational feelings taking them to pre-school. It's this charged combination of stress and joy and anxiety and excitement. When they're away, you've got a sudden loss of purpose and this ever-present fear about the kid's welfare. The departure of our children from our nest is not an easy thing.

It's such a measure of your solidarity with Ed, that when you would give lectures, he would be wearing a tartan tie that matched. And I demanded that outfit, I thought it was so punk - her long skirt, she looked like a Scottish queen, so regal.

I'm hooked on Polanski's films, his psychological thrillers. I love 'Rosemary's Baby,' I love 'Repulsion.'

I hate being manipulated by song. Don't tell me what I should be feeling. I don't want cellos or violins to be telling me that I should be bawling right now.

There really are three types of 'religious' movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.

I've always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it's not the lines you say that are important - it's what exists between the lines. What I'm compelled by most is that transparency of thought, what is left unspoken.

The Ukrainian community is tight-knit by nature.

Your soul either feels lifted by something that you read, or it feels squashed by it.

It's thematic in my career, if you look at most of my choices. It is some level of exploration of maternal angst and maternal heroism.

Editing yourself is like an irksome coin toss. You've got to strip yourself of super ego and operate from the id. Maybe I've got my Freud mixed up. It's just hard to trade a beauty shot for the performance with truth and a brightly lit zit.

Do I observe holy days and holidays? Yeah, the ritual is very important to me. It's part of being Ukrainian Catholic. So every holy day we're baking pierogis and not eating meat.

I have tender, romantic associations with upstate New York.

Ruminants are a perfectly normal thing to possess when you live in upstate New York. It's just moving scenery. It's kind of like the equivalent of Great Danes. It's the way you keep your grass mowed. It's the way you keep your weed-whacking to a minimum.

Sometimes I attract roles that are necessary either for personal growth or enlightenment.

I am drawn to intimate, often uncomfortable portraits of a woman persevering and awakening.

I think maybe I was a shepherdess in a past life.

Working with children is a whole other ball game. They're like little animals. You have to keep the camera turned on them all the time. Sometimes it takes a 41-minute take to get one sentence out in a believable way.

You earn very little money on independent films and I'm the provider for my home, so I do have to think of taking one for the accountant time and again and that means studio pictures.

I can't get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.

The limelight is a tricky place, because you can't believe what's going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated.

I just can't feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don't understand her and want to understand her.

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them: my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a lover, as a daughter.

Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I've ever been privy to as an actress.

Honestly, I think a good film is spiritual, regardless of whether its subject is faith.

There are women who make things better, there are women who change things, there are women who make things happen, who make a difference. I want to be one of those women.

Whether you're making a million dollar film or a $100 million film there is never enough money, there's never enough time.

Am I ambitious? I used to be afraid of that word but now I think ambition is a good thing.

As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character.

Do I pray? Yes. Prayer is very important to me.

Esquire needs to be more like a mommy blog

Esquire's all about mommy issues now. Breastfeeding, vaccinations, playdate etiquette.

Faith is important to me.

Honesty is not synonymous with truth.

I always thought Uncle Vanya could be a stoned masterpiece.

I bet you could look at every single thing I've ever done and reduce it to that parenting schematic.

I bring myself innately to it, yeah. I bring those details as much as I - what I don't obsess over is, there are certain ways I might've pushed it even a little more. For example, [to Warren] your accent. I know Warner Bros. at one point came in. I don't know, until you came to set, I know I wore that long tartan skirt and the ruffled blouse for that.

I cannot even imagine college. I'm white-knuckling it just letting my son go to kindergarten for eight hours a day.

I chase after inspiring stories.

I cherish each director that I have. I want to be maneuvered out of my comfort zones. I don't have the time to prepare.

I come from a massive family, and the youngest is twentysomething years younger than I am, so I grew up with children.

I do love directing. I'm only comfortable working in the independent film arena for a very small budget where I have creative control and I can put my stamp on it.

I don't necessarily need Hollywood.

I grew up in a Christian home. The strictness comes with religion in general. Whether you grew up Jewish or Orthodox Jewish or Muslim, there are certain rules and regulations. But my parents instilled in me the importance of defining God for yourself.

I have a lot of frustration with religion, organized religion, because it's man-made, because it's man-regulated. And it has nothing to do with my relationship with God.

I just want to make sure that the thing that I see in it initially, that I think it can be, is not just going to be a horror film and reduced to a jump here and a scream there. But that you can take something away from it.

I look for struggle in the roles I choose - struggle and perseverance.

I love Saturday nights with my best friend and a big bowl of pasta, wanting a good scare, something that will say, 'Listen, your life is not as bad as this. Your life can be so much worse'.

I love to be surprised.

I rely on my directors, a lot. I love being directed.

I spent a lot of time reading blogs by mothers who had children with varying degrees of neural dysfunction, from schizophrenia to all sorts of different issues. And honestly, I don't think it's different for anybody. There's no right way to make sure your child will be emotionally and mentally healthier. It's just frustrating.

I think I always try to be accommodating and open and available and proving for my director. I love to give as many takes as they want. I love to give them as many choices as they want.

I think the worst thing that can happen to a good actor is fame.

I was very studious and square in college.

I'm incredibly spiritual. There are like tens of thousands of denominations; I don't fit in any one of those denominations comfortably. But I have a very personal relationship with God.

I'm pretty squeaky clean. No big tragedies in my childhood or adolescence or adulthood. I've had a very easygoing, simple life.

I'm someone who can sit in a Buddhist temple, and I can sit with Pentecostals or with Orthodox Jews, and I still feel like I am in tune with all of them.

I'm thinking about anything and everything. I'm making stuff up in my head, I'm using sense memory. Sometimes when it doesn't come and you've got no choice because you're getting paid to do it, you grasp at straws. It's always easy now with my kids. I just create some "what-ifs" in my head, something horrible that would devastate me as a mother.

In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.

It's a delicate thing for me, with how involved I am in social media and being a part of people's lives in a way that they want me to.

It's terrifying to be the lead. There's a moment of excitement, and then pure terror.

It's true: I don't remember what life was like before parenthood.

I've done TV, but never where you're given this much time to live with a character, to study the tone and hone it and repair stuff, to go back and watch old episodes and go, "Oh no, that's a misstep. That's a victory. I should do more of that, less of that."

I've played a lot of mothers in my movies.

My husband is my best friend; he knows my sensibilities.

No role is more challenging, rewarding and inspiring than my real-life role as a mom and a wife.

Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.

Not just as an actress, but on a human-being level, I've experienced frustration on many different levels. [With my] career, it would be more the frustration of not always finding challenging material or inspiring material ... [Acting is] therapeutic for me. I'm pretty accommodating.

Partying has never been my thing. I've been around some wild people. I've been in the same room and watched them experiment, and that's been entertaining.

Patrick sort of had a very pragmatic, practical, Ed-like approach and went down to see.

Sometimes music helps. If I feel that it's bogus, I'll literally just call myself out on camera and say that it's dishonest. You do whatever it takes.

The depth of exploration of the male psyche and the female psyche is uneven. I see further, deeper renderings of what it means to be a man.

The different tempos and yeah, it's cadence. It's the way she moves through space, it's gestures.

The fears and anxieties and obsessions wrapped up in being a parent.

The more people know about you, the more face-time you get in the media, the harder your job becomes to create a character in whom people suspend disbelief.

The writers could always do an about-face and change everything

There really are three types of religious movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.

There's just a deeper level of sophistication in the writing of female characters on TV.

To me representing clairvoyance, how was I going to achieve that, how I was going to capture that? For me, it all became about her gaze and the way she takes you in. It's a rhythmic thing and a stillness thing to consider but these are little details, little nuances. We were invited to the sanctity of her home and there were roosters running around and she's screaming, "Jackie, be quiet!" Even though she's in the middle of the thing. And these are the details that we wanted to incorporate into our story.

We take a lot for granted as second wave feminists, what our mothers and aunts did for us.