Olivia Williams Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• When Roman Polanski did give you a "Great, great, great!" you were just like, "Thank you, Lord, for this magical moment."

  Olivia Williams

  Giving, Moments, Lord

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Ewan McGregor and I said this to each other after we saw The Ghost Writer. Every time Roman Polanski did a "No, no, no!," he was right. It was really as if a sculptor was asked to sculpt the embodiment of despair - that was the attitude he would strike. But as with every sort of inspiring teacher you ever had who was strict and scary, when you get it right, the sun comes out, and it's worth it.

  Olivia Williams

  Teacher, Attitude, Scary

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• My analysis of the situation was that Roman Polanski wasn't trying to break us down or get a performance out of us by destroying us. He was absolutely, very simply, trying to recreate this clear picture in his head. And the pictures he creates are absolutely perfect, and they are exactly what he saw in his head.

  Olivia Williams

  Perfect, Trying, Break

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Roman Polanski actually said as much to me once. He had his head in his hands, and I said, "Roman, I've got to tell you, as an actor, seeing the director with his head in his hands... Look, I really want to do what you want me to do." And he went away and he came back, having obviously thought about what I said. And he said, "When my head is in my hands, I'm closing my eyes and trying to remember what I saw in my head, before any of the stuff."

  Olivia Williams

  Eye, Trying, Remember

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I was lucky, because Ewan McGregor had already been shooting with Roman Polanski for about a month before I got role. And he did a faultless impersonation of what it was going to be like. So when direction happened, it was like, "Oh yeah. That's what Ewan said was going to happen." And so it was a little bit less debilitating than it might have been.

  Olivia Williams

  Lucky

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• The phrase you usually hear after a cut is "That was great. Perhaps we could have another go. Maybe try it this way." Even that much direction is prefaced with a lot of praise and encouragement. It's quite like how you deal with toddlers: positive reinforcement, and then a little suggestion that you might want to try something different. Roman Polanski will stop the take and shout, "No, no, no!" Which is somewhat alarming the first time it happens.

  Olivia Williams

  Encouragement, Cutting, Trying

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I thought "I've coped with some crazy situations, and I can do this." But working with Roman Polanski is so different from the fashionable and accepted way of directing now.

  Olivia Williams

  Crazy, Different, Accepted

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not much of a Method actress, so even though my character in The Ghost Writer was quite dark and bad-tempered, I could only do that if I was seeming quite perky.

  Olivia Williams

  Character, Dark, Ghost

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't tend to spend the whole day in the personality of the person I'm playing.

  Olivia Williams

  Personality

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• I guess maybe I was hired to play in the Doll House because of my dinner scene in The Sixth Sense, which has been scrutinized a thousand times as to whether you know Bruce Willis is dead, or whether I'm talking to myself. I think that maybe if that could be my forte, to do a scene and be able to say it could be read this way or that way.

  Olivia Williams

  Thinking, House, Scene

  Source: film.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

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