Latest Emily Mortimer Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• If there's any plan or scheme on my part, it's subconscious. Whatever I do tends to be very different from the thing I did last. You're terrified of boring either yourself or anyone else. It's always attractive if it feels like something that you haven't done before. I generally tend to be better, I think, when I'm terrified out of my wits.

  Emily Mortimer

  Thinking, Different, Done

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I thought a parent's job was to tell their children not to go into acting as a profession!

  Emily Mortimer

  Children, Acting, Profession

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• You never in a million years thought that you would ever end up in a Woody Allen film even though that might be your dream, and there you are. Suddenly you've got one. But you're not playing the quintessential Woody Allen heroine, which is somebody that's full of self-doubt and heartbreakingly naïve. Chloe in Match Point was a nightmare in some ways and totally entitled, and felt like everything was going to be all right. Most of the women in Woody Allen films feel like everything's awful. I didn't understand what to do. But some of the confusion is helpful.

  Emily Mortimer

  Dream, Confusion, Helpful

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think Georges Feydeau said comedy is just tragedy speeded up.

  Emily Mortimer

  Thinking, Tragedy, Comedy

  Source: www.avclub.com

• There's something helpful about the fast pace of a TV set where everything has to be finished by the end of the week. You have to finish the episode; it doesn't matter how long you have to go on Friday night, but you have to get it done.

  Emily Mortimer

  Friday, Night, Long

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's quite frightening; the business of trying to be funny is very hairy. In comedy, the potential for humiliation is huge. Trying to be funny and failing is about the most embarrassing thing you can do.

  Emily Mortimer

  Trying, Comedy, Failing

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The ratings thing is the real issue. It really hurts movies. For example, in Redbelt, I smoked. The whole plot of my character was based on the fact that I was a smoker. And then they discovered that just by having someone smoking in the movie, it immediately makes the rating an R. So they had to cut out every shot where I had a cigarette in my hand and it totally affected the performance. That was very frustrating to David Mamet as well. I can remember him saying, "It's a nightmare."

  Emily Mortimer

  Hurt, Real, Character

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's censorship, really. I don't see why it's not okay for somebody under the age of 17 watch someone smoking when they can watch someone have their brains blown out? My son and I were watching an ad on the television the other day. And it said, "Rated R." He said, "What does 'rated R' mean?" I said, "God, I don't know. You can't watch it unless you're over a certain age."

  Emily Mortimer

  Mean, Son, Smoking

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Good people can do terrible things, and that's what life is all about, the complexities and grey areas. And often characters aren't written that way in movies, especially characters for women. So you end up being either one thing or the other.

  Emily Mortimer

  Character, People, Terrible

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You do the one film that you think is terrible, but it's a big studio film and you hope you'll get another job because of it, because blah blah blah, whatever it is. You know that you hate it, you just couldn't care less if it got made because it's not something in a million years you'd go and see yourself. And it ends up being shite and you just knew it was shite to begin with, and it doesn't do you any favors at all if someone thought you were in another shite film. So I decided it doesn't get me anywhere being cynical. It's not that I want to be.

  Emily Mortimer

  Hate, Thinking, Cynical

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The harder the circumstances under which you're making a movie, generally the better the friends you make. You're far away from home and so you're kind of lonely, and you end up all gravitating towards each other and the bar every night. It tends to be inversely proportionate to the comfort level on the movie, how close you become to everybody.

  Emily Mortimer

  Lonely, Home, Night

  Source: www.avclub.com

• My take on people and on the characters I play in Transsiberian, the role you're looking for, is that everybody is more than one thing. We're many things, all of us, and there are times when we are capable of great levity and jolliness and then there are times when the opposite is true.

  Emily Mortimer

  Character, People, Capable

  Source: www.avclub.com

• There's a whole world of bad TV that's along similar themes - the cop drama.

  Emily Mortimer

  Drama, World, Cop

  Source: www.avclub.com

• 'Leonie' did get made and it was an extremely wonderful experience. I got to travel the world. I filmed for 6 months - 3 months in New Orleans and 3 months in Japan.

  Emily Mortimer

  New Orleans, Japan, World

  Source: collider.com

• I spent a lot of time with a real detective, a lady detective inspector who was the only female detective inspector in the whole of East London. She and I hung out a lot. She showed me what she did and I spent time with her. So, [she was] a lot of the inspiration for the way I dressed and sometimes the dialogue in those interview scenes where we're cross examining and questioning the youths and trying to get a confession out of them.

  Emily Mortimer

  Real, Inspiration, East London

  Source: collider.com

• There were moments where I was being kicked in the stomach, and even though I had this brace on to protect me, I still had to prepare myself for it . You can't be relaxed when that's happening. You have to brace your muscles. I can remember thinking as it was about to happen "Wasn't that how Houdini died?" I think it was.

  Emily Mortimer

  Thinking, Remember, Moments

  Source: collider.com

• It's very difficult to find the time or the money for people to organize rehearsals for some movies. It staggers me how little preparation often goes into these scenes which are difficult and complicated. You think, "God, it's crazy. I've never met this person before and here I am having to work at how to do a whole performance on the set." It was great to have a few days of just talking to Michael [Caine] and Daniel [Barber] and thinking about the characters and the relationship between them before we started shooting.

  Emily Mortimer

  Crazy, Character, Thinking

  Source: collider.com

• I had watched 'Alfie,' but I didn't consider it a prerequisite. Michael Caine was just extremely fabulous. He's one of the most professional actors I've ever worked with. I guess after a lifetime of doing it, you know what you're doing. He's incredibly uncomplaining, undemanding.

  Emily Mortimer

  Fabulous, Actors, Lifetime

  Source: collider.com

• Despite being extremely professional, Michael Caine has a giggle which was lethal for me because once you catch his eyes, once you realize the other person is a giggler too, it's curtains.

  Emily Mortimer

  Eye, Realizing, Curtains

  Source: collider.com

• Every time you start a new job, you're starting from the beginning again and it's terrifying. And you feel like you're going to be fired and told to go home and never to darken the doors of these people ever again.

  Emily Mortimer

  Jobs, Home, Doors