Iris Quotes

On her role as the child prostitute Iris in Taxi Driver (1976): "At first I didn`t want to do the part, but only because I was afraid my friends would tease me afterwards. I thought, wow, they`ve got to be kidding. It was a great part for a 21-year old, but I couldn`t believe that they were offering it to me. I was the Disney kid."

On her role as the child prostitute Iris in Taxi Driver (1976): "I spent four hours with a shrink to prove that I was normal enough to play a hooker. It was the role that changed my life. For the first time I played something completely different. But I knew the character I had to play - I grew up three blocks away from Hollywood Boulevard and saw prostitutes like Iris every day."

Bad guys stand out in people`s minds. If you think about De Niro or Pacino, you`re not going to stay Stanley and Iris, you are not going to say Author! Author! Even with Brando, you are going to say The Godfather or Street Car. It is the edgier characters that are remembered. That`s my rationalization.

I always think you should be totally frivolous as much as you can, and then take the work seriously when it has to be taken seriously. As long as you can keep that balance going, it`s good fun. If it`s only frivolous it`s not fun - it would drive me potty. On Iris, I`d never worked with Judi Dench before, but it was wonderful to realize that we worked in exactly the same way. Foolish for most of the time, then focusing on the work, clicking into it very quickly and naturally. There were a lot of laughs. Otherwise it could have been torture. Two months of being grueled.