Jacki Weaver Quotations

'Promiscuous' implies that I'm not choosy. In fact I'm very choosy. I just happen to have had a lot of choices.

The thing about being an actor is that every new job is a new challenge. Sometimes you'll have a shot, and it doesn't work. Sometimes it'll work better than you expected.

In Australia, I grew up watching 'The Mickey Mouse Club,' my son grew up watching 'Sesame Street,' my grandson's growing up watching 'Dora The Explorer.' So we are sort of saturated with American culture from the day we're born, and to those of those who do have an ear for it, it's second nature.

When you get as old as I am, you kind of believe there's nothing new under the sun, but there's always a fresh way of looking at something. That's why I love working with young people. They remind you of things you used to know and have since forgotten.

A lioness has got a lot more power than the lion likes to think she has.

This friend of mine said he was surprised to find that - I don't think it's quite a majority - a bigger percentage of actors are introverts than extroverts. It was a big surprise to him. Now, I know me, and I'll do anything if I'm playing a character. Or anything that's true to the character, anyway. But in real life I'm a little more withdrawn.

It's a very generous culture, American culture. I know you can't generalize 300 million people, but everyone I've met here has been so lovely to me.

I believe in sex on a first date. Otherwise, how do you know if a second date is worth the effort?

It's one of the functions of the theater to shock and titillate and appall, apart from entertain and delight.

Sexism is alive and well! We were saying this forty years ago. I'm an optimist, so I like to think we've progressed in some ways - in Australia, we get equal pay.

We're becoming so much better at destigmatizing all sorts of things, including mental illness in 'Silver Linings'.

I remember I was a little girl when Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher from America's Sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, and the reaction back then was enormous! And Angelina Jolie was in trouble, too, for taking a husband away from another America's Sweetheart. Don't take husbands from America's Sweethearts.

I'm always shy when I meet people I admire so I wouldn't be able to say anything rather than, 'How do you do? Love you! Bye!'

The eyes are the windows of your soul, and when you're acting, they're one of your most important instruments. Especially for close-ups!

You learn stuff from every character you play about the human condition that can be quite enlightening.

I'm crazy about the Coen brothers, I'm crazy about Sean Penn. I love the usual suspects like Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep and people like that.

I love getting presents. And awards. I'd do whatever they told me to do.

I was an adventurer, and I got married a few times. I kept trying to find a relationship as good as my parents'.

They call David O. Russell the actor whisperer because he can get stuff out of actors that maybe some other directors can't.

I do a lot of American plays. I've done a lot of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Neil Simon. I was in 'Sisters Rosensweig,' 'Six Degrees of Separation,' all of that stuff. So we're very familiar with America. I did 400 performances of 'Born Yesterday.' I did 700 performances of 'They're Playing Our Song.'

I love gay Mardi Gras in Sydney, which is a big parade, a big march that thousands and thousands of people participate in. And there's one little group... well it's not little, it's got hundreds of people marching, and they're all very sweet, middle-aged and elderly people who are the parents of gay children who are out and proud.

The Oscar buzz when I was nominated was totally overwhelming. I think I can cope with anything now that I've coped with that. It was huge. It makes you realize, coming from a small country like Australia, what an enormous industry it is in America.

I'm a nice middle-class girl in real life, and I'm a mom and a grandma, and I usually play sweet characters.

A lot of directors want to storyboard you, whereas the best way to get a performance out of an actor is a collaborative process where you listen to the actor's input.

I was sent the script for 'Silver Linings' when I was doing a play in D.C. at The Kennedy Center with Cate Blanchett and I was sent the script and asked if I was interested, and I said 'Oh, boy am I!'

Well, I've been acting for 50 years now, professionally. I've been acting a lot longer. My mother reckons I was acting when I got out of the womb. But because I've been working in the theater, I've probably only done about 25 movies but I've done more than 100 plays.

When I was seven, I wanted to be Esther Williams. I was drummed out of Brownies because I snuck off to the cinema to watch an Esther Williams festival - my greatest wish if I get to Hollywood is to meet her.

Every director's so different. Everybody has their own modus operandi and I love getting to know different directors in the way they work. David O. Russell is very exciting to be with because he's got a mind like quicksilver.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

It's a basic tenet you learn at drama school. If you're playing someone evil, you can't make an objective moral judgment. You've got to get inside the character and empathize as much as possible.

It's funny in the U.K., where I'm not really known because I never did a soap. My English cousins in the Lake District think I'm not a real actor because they've never seen me in 'Home and Away' or 'Neighbours.'

I've had five weddings but if I'm really honest and if I count significant de factos... I've had nine husbands... which sounds appalling but when you consider I started at 18 and I'm 65 it's not so bad.

I've had my share of villains and played some fairly nasty characters. But I've been acting for so long. I started out as the girl next door. Now I'm the grandmother next door.

I've done a lot of plays before where I had to do a New York accent, but never a Philly one before. They do the rhotic 'r' - where you say the 'r' - where most New Yorkers don't.

I'm under five feet; I'm very small, 4'11 1/2.

I love pretending to be other people. The more unlike me they are the better - I find other people endlessly fascinating and myself incredibly boring.

I live for my work, apart from my family who come first. And I live to tell stories and pretend to be other people, it's something I've been doing since I was 3 years old. Maybe it's because I'm intrinsically bored with myself, and I find other people more interesting. The more different they are, the bigger the challenge.

I haven't really had a major role in film for about 12 years. But I never stopped working in the theater. I do stuff back to back.

I'm good at not laughing. It's not that I don't want to. I'm too old and experienced.

Emily and I have some funny scenes where we quarrel and it gets quite heated, the mother-daughter relationship. You know, film mothers and daughters adore each other. And some don't. But how could you not love Emily Blunt? But I think I'm just one of those people who's always discontented.

Emily [Blunt] is such a giggler, she has such a positive life force about her and she's so giggly in a naughty sort of schoolgirl way that it kind of brings out the worst in you, you just love making her laugh. And also Nick Stoller has one of the best laughs. It's so infectious and whenever he laughs at something you do, it's like giving us a reward.

Well, let's say Asian. Some are Japanese. Some are Chinese. Some are Thai. Some are Vietnamese. He runs the gamut. And I actually happen to have a very dear daughter-in-law who's Japanese. I don't know what she's going to make of the film, but I say a few disparaging things.

The libel laws in Australia are a lot tougher than they are in America.

I think that's why we're always so fascinated with criminal stories because there but for the grace of God it could be us.

I think we're all capable of bad things but luckily most of us are able to curb ourselves.

One of the things you learn at drama school is not to play the result, but just to play the moment.

I'm in fact Australian but my mother's English so I've got no problem playing a domineering English woman.

Even in Australia I'd say 80 percent of our television was American. I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. I used to sit with my mum when I was just nine years old, trying to guess what the twist would be. I love that kind of thing.

I'd love to be a voice in 'Toy Story 4.'

Being a theater actor, I've done a lot of plays where I've seen someone else play the same role in another production. Especially with the classics: Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams.

I usually do get to play the very sweet, charming roles... but I'm not an obvious kind of villain.

I guess just a lively imagination is the best effort an actor can have.

I think early on it's important to put that at the back of your mind and make your own choices. Sometimes you do pick the same choices, just as a matter of course - not because someone else did it first, but because it was the best choice to make. But any actor worth his salt makes something their own.

I don't play many characters like myself. Oh I don't know what I am!

I do have friends in Australia who now refer to me as 'Hollywood Jack.'

My taste is very eclectic. I love musicals, but I also love the classics. I've seen some fantastic productions. I was in a musical for 600 performances in Australia that I first saw in New York.

Everything the Coen brothers do is brilliant.

I'm under five feet; I'm very small, 4'11 1/2.

No, I'm so well-known at home I think they think of me like a piece of comfortable furniture that's always been around that they're not going to throw out.

It wasn't on my agenda, but the thing about getting important awards is it makes the adventure of your career have a little more possibility. I think just what's happened so far is already making the opportunities more interesting, even though I'm at the twilight of my career of like 48 years.

It's fascinating. It's also exhilarating when you see people making the exact same choices that you've made. It kind of validates what you've decided to do. I saw a wonderful production of Jessica Lange doing Streetcar with Alec Baldwin. It was gorgeous. It's a measure of what a great classic that is, that our Cate Blanchett also did an absolute amazing Blanche in Sydney, as well as in New York.

To be embraced by Hollywood when I'd been acting professionally for almost 50 years seemed unbelievable. I've been so welcomed in such a warm, generous way - it seemed crazy not to take advantage of it. I hope for another 20 years where I can still keep going.

I love when I am not typecast. I've been acting for 50 years. I was such a baby face; I was playing children until I was in my 30s, which frustrated me enormously. Now that I am 65 and getting to play women in their 50s, I am getting paid back for having to play children for so long.

David Michôd changed my life, quite literally, along with the chaps at Sony Pictures Classics. That's what set me on my way. I thought we did good work and had a good film, but when it was so praised at Sundance that year that's what really started the ball rolling. We all paid our own way to Sundance.

I don't think they're more temperamental people now. With social media we hear a lot more about it. The nastiness you get online, there were always mean girls - always - they didn't have such a big forum as they do now. Mean girls ought to get a life, I think.

Most Australians who've got an ear can do an American accent because we grow up listening to them on television and in movies.

I've always said about awards that they're meaningless until you win one, and then they're best thing in the world. The other thing about awards is that they engender respect from areas where it might never have come from without it.

I've had lots of good career advice over the years. I've learned that you must always arrive knowing your lines, you must hit your marks, you must be punctual and cheerful and kind. I'm always irritated with young people who misbehave and young actors who are temperamental. I don't think there's any need for it.

I know that Philadelphians hate New York actors passing off New York accents as Philadelphian when they are quite different.

I love a bit of a sequin and a bead. I do, even though I usually wear trousers, when I put a frock on. I like a bead or a sequin.

I have no problem with my age. I've been acting for 50 years in Australia and everyone knows my age because I started at 15. So there was never any point in lying about it.