Frances McDormand Quotes

Certainly, a lot of the films I`ve worked on have ended up good movies, but they haven`t always been the best experiences.

Most women`s pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men`s pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down.

I haven`t wanted to play a mother for a long time because I am one.

You have to get away from the theater or from the set and live life. If you work constantly from job to job, you`re living in a fantasy world and you have nothing else to offer than fantasy.

I like hard rock, and classic rock, and even metal.

It`s much easier to play supporting roles because that`s what I do in my life: I support my son.

I`m a character actress, plain and simple... Who can worry about a career? Have a life. Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don`t work, and then they work again.

I am an ordinary person.

I never trusted good-looking boys.

The only power you have is the word no.

I don`t think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you`re the character you`re trying to be.

(On how she got the part in Fargo (1996)) "The fact that I`m sleeping with the director may have something to do with it."

Who can worry about a career? Have a life.

The fact that I`m sleeping with the director may have something to do with it.

There`s only two givens with choosing acting as a profession: one is you will always be unemployed, always, and it doesn`t matter how much money you make, you`re still always going to be unemployed; and that you have no power.

With most people when there`s a pain in their life there`s mental scar tissue that forms over the pain and helps you go on living. An actor`s scar tissue really never covers over things the same way, not if you`re going to be sensitive. With good technique, an actor can do that and walk through life without going insane.

On playing `mothers`: "Those roles weren`t just mothers in a story about a male protagonist. First they were specific, three-dimensional people."

I`m a character actress, plain and simple...Who can worry about a career? Have a life. Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don`t work, and then they work again.

It`s a scary thing going into the workforce with a $50,000 debt and you`ve been trained as a classical theatre actor. There`s always a depression in the theatre.

On "women`s pictures": "Most women`s pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men`s pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down. I cry too, maybe three times a week, but it`s not in closeup. It`s a wide shot. It`s in the context of a very large and very mean world."

I don`t think of myself as a movie star and I can pretty easily convince other people that I`m not a movie star.

I`m a character actress, plain and simple.

Movie stars have careers - actors work, and then they don`t work, and then they work again.