Julia Stiles Quotes

I know it sounds earnest, but I do really feel in my bones that acting is just a small part of the equation when you are making a movie. The director really is in charge. Actors are as important or unimportant as the rest of the people around them.

Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.

I tend to gravitate toward the more powerful roles. As opposed to the doe-eyed girl who bats her eyelashes and runs around in towels, you now what I mean? Because that kind of makes me want to vomit.

I think women get caught up too much in having a plan - 'I'm going to get married at this age; I'm going to have a kid at this age' - and then they just try to find a guy who will fit into that picture. I don't want my life to be based on that.

I think I was born an artist. But the key is that I have a mom that encouraged and supported my artistic side. She still has the stick-figure drawings framed.

I'm going to Columbia University but I'm trying to keep that low-profile because I don't want weird people following me there. I want the experience of normal college life.

Of course my family and friends are incredibly valuable to me. They keep me sane, they teach me things and I love spending time with them. I think that ranking what you value is a sort of western and linear way of looking at things.

I took the role of Ophelia in Hamlet because she is so naive, loving, and innocent.

I like analyzing human behavior. It's complex. That's what keeps me going.

I think audiences, producers and directors included, develop crushes on actors (actresses in particular) and then lose interest and move on to the next one.

The only thing that gets me through any type of pain, emotional or physical, is to make it worthwhile by putting it into my work.

I worked regularly from very early on, and some of it was probably a bit premature.

It's not my job to critique the writing. I'm there to serve it. I had to figure out a way to make it work.

Sometimes I have these abstract ideas and then lose track of myself.

Even after such milestones as Kathryn Bigelow winning an Oscar, there still seem to be few women in leadership roles.

I kind of don't believe in actors directing themselves. Obviously some people have done it well, but I don't see how I could. It's funny that you ask, because I've just been thinking that maybe I'd rather direct The Bell Jar than act in it. It's a huge leap to go from a short to a feature, so I'm tentative - I'm like, Well, that's just so triple-type-A personality of you.

I'm not good at keeping secrets. If I'm entrusted with a secret from a friend, I can do that because I'm a good friend, but I don't like having secrets, it makes me nervous.

Make yourself useful, not just on a day to day basis, but as a lifetime thing.

It's actually really great to be a student and an actor, because I get to do this job that I love, then just when I think my head might explode, I get to go to school where they don't really care about what magazine cover I'm on.

I am forever grateful that I got some training in the theater - it reduces performance anxiety.

I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.

My regular school didn't know what to do with me!

I always feel like a goofy little kid.

I never think of myself as an actor who takes work home with them.

I've really turned a corner recently in terms of not taking work too seriously, so it is much easier for me to not take my work home.

In my worst moments, I try to think about loving instead of hating. Creation versus destruction, know what I'm sayin'?

Yoga has stopped me from destroying my joints after running. It slows me down. My brain and body can go into overdrive - yoga teaches me to focus on the moment and not get ahead of myself.

Fundamentally women and men are different.