Latest Olivia Williams Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• It was fine when I was single and childless. Carrying the responsibility of screwing up your kids at the same time is huge. I remember when I got Peter Pan, and I told my mom and dad and my friends I was leaving - again, I was cast way late on - in the next two days to go to Australia for four months, and they all went "Bye! See you in four months!" But no one said "We need you," and I really knew that it was time to think about someone else for a change.

  Olivia Williams

  Mom, Dad, Kids

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think it's quite lucky that I lead this lifestyle, and in fact, my career's only gotten better as I've looked older, because it ages you, the uncertainty.

  Olivia Williams

  Thinking, Age, Lucky

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I really needed to have something in my life, because I realized there were other things more important than my career. So I love having my children and my family.

  Olivia Williams

  Children, Important, My Family

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I love the ups and downs and the eccentricities of my career. The worst movies have produced some of the best friendships.

  Olivia Williams

  Worst, Ups & Downs

  Source: film.avclub.com

• When The Sixth Sense was the No. 1 movie in America, I had a Canadian boyfriend whose only assets at the time were a guitar and a van. I don't know what I was thinking.

  Olivia Williams

  Thinking, Sixth Sense

  Source: film.avclub.com

• My agents were like "Come to L.A., we've got meetings for you." I was like "No, I'm doing this now." Then my father became very ill back in England, and I didn't want to be away. I went back to England and did a bunch of crazy indie movies, all of which I loved with a passion, and none of which did any business.

  Olivia Williams

  Father, Crazy, Passion

  Source: film.avclub.com

• My parents are both lawyers, and my father always said his best cases have been returns, cases that come into his office from another lawyer. So he said, "Never be ashamed to take a return." All my best roles have happened because someone else dropped out at the last minute, and God bless those actresses for their queeny fits, their sprained ankles, their better job turning up, because that's how I've got my best work.

  Olivia Williams

  Father, Office, Parent

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I am a pathetic and gushing Nick Hornby fan, and I wanted to be in High Fidelity, and I wanted to be in About A Boy, and those two directors - one who's a dear friend, and one who has never cast me in anything, despite my pleading... So there was another Nick Hornby script going around being cast by a friend of mine, and she said, "There's a very small role in it, but you'd be right for it." I was like "I don't care how small, I'm going to be in this Nick Hornby film."

  Olivia Williams

  Boys, Care, Film

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Carey Mulligan is completely self-possessed. She knows what she's doing, and again, quite like the big-hitters I was talking about, my job was just to feel and reflect back the amazing performance coming my way. If anything, I was slightly pathetically flying in her tailwind. She's an extraordinary actress.

  Olivia Williams

  Flying, My Way, Extraordinary

  Source: film.avclub.com

• It was as big as a Beatles concert, I guess. Friends was unbelievably popular in Britain, and it was incredibly exciting. I had never experienced anything quite like that before in my life. I was honored to be a part of that.

  Olivia Williams

  Exciting, Honored

  Source: film.avclub.com

• There are movies where I've walked onto the set and felt, "This is home," and I'm confident in myself and my work, but that was my first experience of live TV. At that stage, Friends was at its unassailable height of popularity and brilliance.

  Olivia Williams

  Home, Popularity, Brilliance

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I'm 5'9" and have the body of an English person that doesn't know how to diet.

  Olivia Williams

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I hope I never get in the situation where I refuse to audition, because I think people have a right to see you interpreting the character, and if you don't do it the way they want you to, they have a right to say, "No."

  Olivia Williams

  Character, Thinking, People

  Source: film.avclub.com

• It's funny, when people want things to be very truthful and you're dealing with an inexperienced actor. I'm of the school that believes things like that have to be very carefully choreographed. You need people there to say, "It's going to happen like this."

  Olivia Williams

  Believe, School, People

  Source: film.avclub.com

• The trouble with audition process is, when you're an unemployed actor, it's the only time you get to act, and it can be quite fun. If you feel in control of the material and you feel that the people are pleased to see you and are excited by you auditioning for them, it can be a really rewarding process. But it can also be a very humiliating process.

  Olivia Williams

  Fun, People, Trouble

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I loved Rushmore. I loved the script. I mean, that is what drew me to it, just the actual piece of literature the script is. But I never thought in a million years that anyone would see it or respond to it. It was an absolute joy that it was so loved and continues to be. The same with The Sixth Sense. I thought, "No one's going to watch this. Bruce Willis hasn't got a gun. There's no shagging. Lovely story, sweet and profound about loss and death, but no one's going to watch this."

  Olivia Williams

  Sweet, Mean, Loss

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I'm on record as having said "I've done this amazing movie - The Sixth Sense - that no one is going to see." And then it stayed in the top 10 American films for about six months. So don't ask me. I'm the most disastrous PR and marketing predictor.

  Olivia Williams

  Marketing, Done, Film

  Source: film.avclub.com

• As an actor, you're just taking temperature. I am anyway, all the time, and responding appropriately. I was again cast very last-minute for Rushmore and met Wes Anderson, this quite physically and socially awkward man who didn't really talk to me much, a precocious and intelligent young boy. And Bill Murray. And we were sort of left in this bizarre hotel together and taken to strange locations around Houston. That was quite an isolating experience.

  Olivia Williams

  Taken, Intelligent, Boys

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I am the worst judge of how a movie is going to do. I always have great and ambitious hopes, but none of them see the light of day.

  Olivia Williams

  Judging, Ambitious, Worst

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I had the best teacher in the business. Kevin Costner was my teacher. I was acting opposite him and he was directing me. The way he directed me, for which I am eternally grateful, is he would watch the scene back on the monitor, which is sort of considered unfashionable - you're not meant to watch yourself. But he was like, "Come around. Watch this. See there, you're doing a great reaction, but you're doing it out of frame." That was exactly what I needed. I learned how to act on film from him.

  Olivia Williams

  Teacher, Grateful, Acting

  Source: film.avclub.com

• For me, selfishly, The Postman didn't kill my career. It meant I didn't shoot straight and painfully into the limelight, but Rushmore came out of it. No one would have known where I was to cast me in Rushmore had I not been in The Postman. Because they shared a producer. Nor would I have been in The Sixth Sense. Nor would I be speaking to you now if Kevin Costner hadn't cast me in The Postman.

  Olivia Williams

  Producers, Sixth Sense, Postman

  Source: film.avclub.com

• My very first friend was my stand-in, who's a very dear friend to this day, and she kind of saved my ass. She told me where to stand and where the camera was and where to look. I thought, "If I don't enjoy this, then there's absolutely no point in being an actor."

  Olivia Williams

  Kind, Ass, Enjoy

  Source: film.avclub.com

• As I was getting into the helicopter, a slightly nervous actor said to me, "Whatever you do, don't say to the helicopter pilot, 'Show me what this baby can do.'" So I of course, got into it and said, "Show me what this baby can do." And we just had this insane helicopter ride. It's the sort of thing you only get to do on movie sets. I'm so lucky to have done it and have that chance.

  Olivia Williams

  Baby, Insane, Lucky

  Source: film.avclub.com

• If the role is right and it's another situation of having a benevolent genius at the head of it, someone who likes actors, and will protect the actors from the ravages of reality-TV drama. It's a brutal world, and you need to have a strong creative team who can stand up to the network.

  Olivia Williams

  Strong, Drama, Team

  Source: film.avclub.com

• That was a bizarre and unlikely event, which has misled a generation of drama students from my old drama school that dreams really do come true. I was an unemployed actor. I had been an actor for about eight years, and had worked in theater, and done a tiny bit of TV, and somehow an audition video of mine ended up on Kevin Costner's television screen, and he rang me up and invited me to fly first-class to Hollywood and be in his movie The Postman.

  Olivia Williams

  Dream, Drama, School

  Source: film.avclub.com