I don’t think you have to be in these serious, heavy, independent little movies to be an actor. Some of the most interesting acting I’ve seen is on cable television. – Laura Dern
In American culture we are supposed to take a pill when we’re depressed or in grief as opposed to actually feeling. – Laura Dern
If you have a movie coming out, and people are talking about you, the amount of scripts will build. – Laura Dern
If you’re looking to be loved for a part, it’s great and enticing to be adorable in a romantic comedy. But then, as an actor, you get stuck. – Laura Dern
Whatever character you play, it gives you the chance to expose another side of yourself that maybe you’ve never felt comfortable with, or never knew about. – Laura Dern
I was on the cover of a lot of magazines, and there were compliments about beauty and fashion and what I was wearing. Man, if you get locked into that, you can lose your freedom as an actress. – Laura Dern
If we could all figure out a way to just be true to ourselves and have a good time doing what we’re doing, it would be a lot more fun. – Laura Dern
With ‘Mask,’ ‘Smooth Talk’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ I loved the specific experiences so much. Each one was a specific filmmaker with a specific vision. – Laura Dern
I’ve got the sort of personality that requires me to find some sort of release, and for me, it’s performing. – Laura Dern
What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you? – Laura Dern
Like anything else, acting can become boring – a chore, really – if there isn’t any challenge. And I like taking challenges. Just when people think they have me figured out, I like to surprise them. – Laura Dern
I’m lucky enough that directors sometimes seek me out for little projects that people don’t even know about, that just surface later on. – Laura Dern
My daughter wants to do yoga with me and wants to be in the theater thing, and I can’t tell her, ‘Don’t be an actress.’ My son loves guitar and loves to be in a band and wants his iTunes downloaded with all this old-school hip-hop so he understands where hip-hop came from. – Laura Dern
I don’t want to mess with my face. So I’m becoming fluent in French so I can go to France and make French films when I’m 60. – Laura Dern
I have a very wonderfully, bizarrely amazing relationship with my mother in that we’ve been through a myriad of emotions because we’ve acted together and played all these different kinds of mother-daughters. – Laura Dern
It’s one thing to have forced time off as an actor, and another thing when you actually say, ‘I don’t want to read anything, and I don’t want to talk to anybody.’ – Laura Dern
You don’t always get to work as much as you like, because I’m waiting to find things that I care about. Sometimes that’s frustrating. – Laura Dern
There are people who consider it almost unpatriotic to be inquisitive and to be truthful about your opinions. – Laura Dern
I made a commitment to myself; that I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to do films that make a difference. It has to move people. – Laura Dern
Ben Stiller, who I love and who is a friend and is such an incredible actor – he’s hilarious, obviously, but I thought his performance in ‘Greenberg’ was extraordinary. – Laura Dern