Jacki Weaver Quotes

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.

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

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

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!'

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.'

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

Everything the Coen brothers do is brilliant.

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!'

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.