Rachel Weisz Quotes

To come to the Oscars for the first time and be seven months pregnant is quite a thing!

Fear is like the steam that fires the combustion engine. You need fear to get a performance going.

I go and see music all the time.

When I play a part, I never think about likability.

Bad things happen when people work together. Everything goes out of control.

You would never say to a man, 'do you like playing strong men?' You just wouldn't say that.

I think mystery is kind of great. I don't know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner - not really - and I like that. I love watching their movies because they're my personal movie stars. I don't know what they eat and who their trainer is.

You have your real life and then you have your work.

We're on this rock and we can choose to treat each other well or we can choose to kill each other and be uncivilized. I don't know. It's very tragic. It's a very tragic thing to think about.

I find Hollywood really toxic.

Often Hollywood crews go into third world countries and I don't believe they behave well.

I think London's sexy because it's so full of eccentrics.

Some people like having eyes upon them and I don't.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

If I'm just in dungarees, I don't think I would intimidate anyone.

The most interesting characters are those you're drawn to, then repelled by, and then come to understand. All that tension - I live that. But I don't plan the tension. It's just something that should happen.

As Ralph's character begins to discover the political thriller aspect of the film, he falls deeper in love with his wife, so the two run together. That's the beauty of this film. It has fast pace and excitement, but it also has heart and soul.

I'm very drawn to characters who are very flawed. I'm less interested in characters who are just good or bad, because to me then they're not real people.

I'm very successful and do lots of films but I've never actually done anything extraordinary.

It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.

I've done a lot of drama, and comedy was the one genre I was not being offered. So I became obsessive about getting one.

People still kill in the name of religion. We haven't evolved to the point where we're one tribe called humans.

In real life, I'm polite and nice all the time. It's fun to play people who aren't. It's escapism.

That was me under the bath and the water being held down. The director wanted it to look as real as possible so he told Keanu, in front of me, don't go easy on her. So it was scary.

Most people care what people think about them ... we all do.

L.A. makes you feel ugly.

I'm thinking of doing more theatre. It makes me very happy.

I think I'm very curious about other people. I like to sit and eavesdrop, you know.

In L.A., unless you've just won an Oscar or you're Mr. Studio Head, no one talks to you. Even at parties.

For me, being a mum has been a really, really instinctive thing.

I didn't think the teachers had the right to tell me what to do. I would just disobey, talk in the classroom, get very bad grades.

The older you get the more capable you get at managing life.

I think if you ask the audience to like you, it's all over.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

You have to be quite stupid to act.

I have absolutely no empathy for camels. I didn't care for being abused in the Middle East by those horrible, horrible, horrible creatures. They don't like people. It's not at all like the relationship between horses and humans.

You know, in America, Christian fundamentalism vs. science. You know, be it teaching Darwinian evolutionary theory or stem cell res- You know, the whole thing, and then the issue of women being educated in Middle Eastern - I mean, it just seems so contemporary. In terms of spirituality, it's interesting because I actually think (her character in Agora) Hypatia is very spiritual.

I haven't only been offered Hasidic roles.

If I went out in killer heels and full makeup, blow dry, the whole thing - anyone dressed up like that could be intimidating to men and women, really. It's so, look at me. Do you know what I mean? But I love women.

I like acting too much and it's too, I'm just too busy doing that and I'm too hungry for it, to get behind the camera. I mean, unless I could act in it, too. I don't think I've got the right brain. I'm too disorganized.

At the end of the day, flirting is a pretty universal language. Americans are more direct. British people are more indirect about everything

I'm too disorganized.

I don't know anything about science.

My real fantasy if I was to drop out would be to live in a mobile home and be a hippie and drive around festivals and have millions of children - children with dreadlocks and nose rings - and play the flute.

(Human) beings, in Pagan times would kind of like, listen to the stories and, they could kind of, identify - . They were, like, bigger than them and more successful than them or more beautiful, but they had these human fallibilities. Which is like celebrities now. It's like, 'oh, she's in rehab. Oh, she's unfaithful. Oh, they're divorced. Oh, she's anorexic. Oh, he's had a nose job.' You know, whatever it might be.

I don't think balance is something you get from someone else; it's something women have to find from within. For me, finding balance is still a work in progress.

I love to take baths.

I just think that things get easier as you get older and wiser and more experienced. You get more confident about who you are as you get older. I find that really comforting.

I prefer being as far from the centre of celebrity as possible.

I am proud of what I am. I am - a librarian.

I don't like travelling. Which is ridiculous. And it's not because I'm afraid of dying on the plane or anything. I just like to stay at home.

Well, I'm not at all like the tough, sexy femme fatale in Confidence but it's fun to play people who're really different from you, from different cultures and places. I suppose I'm a bit quieter than most of the people I play.

I think that in big-budget movies there's a lot of other stuff going on besides acting, like special effects.

When people think of performing they usually think of show-offs, but I think of it more that you disappear into somebody else.

He really paid tribute to the people who are willing to risk their own lives to fight injustice - they are greater men and women than I.

I'm not confident around compliments or being celebrated, and I'm not comfortable with the thought of envy, which some people thrive on.

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

Oh yah, I'm definitely an old rocker.

I'm marriable. But I'm not married.

Because I think in order to get famous you have to be known for something. Like 'You're the romantic comedy girl' or 'You're the Oscar-winning whatever girl.'

As an actress, it's part of your job to be able to imagine just about anything - even if it's not within your personal experience.

The bond between mother and baby is so interesting. Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time, but when it happens to you it feels like a miracle.

I don't judge the character at all. It's a bit like being someone's defense lawyer - you have to believe in their innocence in order to defend them.