Mary Steenburgen

I've had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote 'Sugar' and 'Honey' at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.

Do I feel like I still need to prove myself? Absolutely. And I want to feel that way, and I like that.

I'm a very musical person.

I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.

I've found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it's percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it.

The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.

Christopher Lloyd was actually the first person - or certainly one of the first few - who ever spoke to me on film.

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.

Let me put it this way. There is more to acting than just acting like somebody. I like to act in such a way that other people get some notion of what it's like to be somebody.

I would say that the things that have really left a mark on me have more to do with my family and my children's lives rather than a film role.

I was a waitress for six years in New York. I actually got fascinated to see how fast and how good a waitress I could be. I was doing it, so I tried to do it as well as I could.

I got my SAG card on my first movie, 'Goin' South,' with Jack Nicholson in 1978.

I think, as an actor, you're constantly confronted with your fear of sticking your neck out.

I have never been able to sing in the shower, much less in front of anybody.

I am lucky enough not to have to take jobs unless I love the material.

I don't know how I could plan my career.

I have never had any success in planning my life, really.

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

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.

My family didn't have money to travel, so reading was how I knew about the world. It made me hungry to have more experiences than just what I could possibly experience in Arkansas.