Quotes

I think people can be super spicy and sexy even though they are together… As long as the two characters have a strong point of view. There’s stories like ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’, ‘The Thin Man’… Those are really great examples of how great people can be and how much chemistry there can be even when they’re a couple. Just get it goin’, man! Just do it, you know.

I have to believe in the character to perform it.

I just enjoy working with really wonderful actors and amazing creative people and I hope to keep doing that, no matter where.

I was named for my grandmother. It’s an evil-eye name, to protect you from bad things.

Maybe I’m naively romantic, but I do believe that spice and excitement doesn’t stop once a couple gets together.

Men should never marry their muse. It ruins the illusion.

I love accents; I would love to find more characters with a variety of vocal intonations. It creates a character. It’s like you’re singing a song. Some people find their character through walking or movement – for me, voice is one of the ways I find parts of the character.

I have a lot of brothers. It’s easy for me to do physical stuff. I had to survive. I really love it, and I’d love to do more of it. I want to do action films. I want to go and hang off of wires, and jump off of bridges, and hang on bungee cords. I’ve always really loved it.

I will direct one day. I need some more life experience before I feel like I can do something like that comfortably. It’d be a feature, it’d be something maybe that I had in writing as well.

I try to get away. It’s very unusual for me to be in one spot for so many months, which is one of the things I’ve had to get used to for a television show. I enjoy going on adventures and seeing the planet.

In talking with people that have experienced it, I learned that PTSD is something that a person in a position of authority sometimes thinks they’re not supposed to have. They don’t always have an avenue to personally address it or even discuss it.

When I was 16, I was in Boston and some friends said, ‘You want to go to New York?,’ I went with my roommate… These guys said, ‘We’re going to this club. Just don’t go in the washroom.’ It was CBGB. I had no idea what it was or the history of all the music. All I knew was this was my first 21-and-over club and I managed to get in!

People in life take on certain stories and say, ‘I’m going to be defined by this story and I’m going to live up to every inch of this story.’ Sometimes you realize the story isn’t fulfilling you and in fact you’re not living the life that you’re given.

(on Kate Beckett) She’s a woman, which means that she’s inherently strong. There are all these other wonderful facets to her, as well: hope, sometimes girlish hope; self-doubt; confidence. There’s a Joan of Arc quality to her, I suppose. There are different ways of communicating with people in different scenarios. In the workplace, you can really only be one kind of person, whereas with Castle, she has to maintain a certain sense of decorum for right now, but as we move forward and he gets to know her more, we get to see her other layers.

As an actor it seems we’re always living out of our suitcase, never really knowing what’s next, which can be exciting, but it also can frame your life in a weird way.

They educated us. They inspired us. They challenged us. We challenged them. They let us travel. They gave us lessons: piano, ballet, karate, and so on. They are ambitious. They’re fabulous parents and I’m really fortunate to have them.

It makes it weird to work in this industry sometimes. When I need to get a moment of perspective, when I feel as if I’m getting ridiculous about something, I’ll just go away and try to communicate or become in communion with truth, and then I realize how ridiculous all these worries are. They mean nothing! In 300 years what will any of us or our little problems mean to people.

Acting was always the focus. It’s weird, I was asked as a little kid by parents’ friends, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ I think I was four years old, and I said, ‘I want to be an actress.’ I always knew.

As an actor, I feel like you’re asked to live life as vibrantly as possible.

The luxury of creativity wasn’t afforded to my parents because they had to build a life, and they had to survive, so I feel very lucky that I’ve gotten to pursue a creative life.

For actors, every time we do a new role, it’s kind of like entering into a new sandbox. The only thing that you can hope for is that the person on the other side of the sandbox is willing to bounce the ball back to you.

(revealing she practiced lesbian sex scenes for the movie “Feast of Love” with Selma Blair) We rehearsed our love scene quite a bit in a private room together. We both looked at the bed, looked at each other and walked into the room and went at it. As a kisser, I would say Selma was very titillating. It was my first time kissing a woman and I had a great time with her. But I reconfirmed to myself that I’m 100 percent heterosexual.

She’s a little girl, she’s a tigress, and she’s a warrior. She’s insecure and she’s indomitable. She’s everything. I think showcasing some of those parts make her more believable and more fun to play.

I really admire her because she is a woman in a position of authority. She’s imperfect, and in spite of her flaws, she tries to do her best, and she works with intelligence and heart.

(on her siblings) We’re all oddballs doing different things in the world, and they’re all on their way to growing into really interesting adults, although I don’t know if any of us will ever really be adults, because we’re all really strange.

That’s a whole new experience, the TV world and the hours you put into TV versus film. We’re shooting 10 pages in a day, we’re there from 12 to 17 hours in a day, and that’s crazy for me. And you have to be on because you’re in every shot. It was definitely a stamina-builder but I enjoyed it so much and I learned so much but I can’t walk away from it without saying how lucky I am.

I think every role, whether in TV or film, has a part in building a career and relationships.

I think ‘Game of Thrones’ was extraordinary. I want to do some period pieces. It would be lovely to tell great stories, that is my main ambition. And to be working with amazing creators.

When you learn to open yourself up, it’s amazing the transformation that takes place: the breath becomes fuller. The heart becomes open. They’re vulnerable, but there’s something so amazing about brave vulnerability.

I read ‘Scarlett’ recently, and that was a killer comic book. The ‘Black Widow’ was pretty rockin’. There is a big list of killer chicks that are just rockin’.

My parents are European immigrants. And I think as Europeans there are so many languages in close proximity that it’s part of the culture to try to learn at least one other language. So my parents really encourage it in the house. Chinese would be really great to learn – like Mandarin or Cantonese. Portuguese would be incredible.

I had an interview this morning, and one of the questions they asked was “To what do you attribute the success of ‘Castle’?” I said it was you guys. Thank you all for always showing up on Monday nights, for blogging and supporting us… over the Internet, for making wicked t-shirts, for sending heartfelt letters and coffee gift certificates, and for all of the amazing artwork I get to see each week. We only did as well as we did last week because of all of you. Thank you.

I think she’s like a female superhero on television, and we’re slowly exploring more and more of that. She’s got a tremendous amount of integrity. I’ve gotten to do more stunts lately, which is really cool. They’re letting us show more of her sexier side. She’s complex, and she’s also flawed. She’s not a perfect character, so there’s a lot to play in that.

I sincerely believe that the greatest achievement that a person in the performing arts can do is help people transcend, to help people come out of themselves for a moment, and, perhaps, change through an experience that the performer provides.

(About Kate Beckett) I love that she’s flawed. I love that she tries to do the right thing, but she doesn’t always do the right thing. I believe in characters who aren’t perfect. I believe in people. And I believe in playing characters that are like people.

I relate to Kate Beckett in a lot of ways. I think she is a strong, independent, career-driven woman who is not afraid to show her feminine side. At the same time, we differ in that I am more of a free spirit and perhaps less “by the book” than she is.

My best payoff has been hard work, truly. I don’t get any favours. Everything I’ve done, I’ve gotten because of hard work, and so that’s the most important thing for a young actor. Work on your craft, work on your attitude & work on your business.

Stana is as serious as a heart attack about her work. She’s got this binder. She kind of dogears pages, she highlights, she writes notes. She has this binder with her all the time. And when I’m not doing a scene, I’ll often be reading a book or playing a game on my iPhone or Twittering. She’s got her nose in her binder, drawing notes and folding pages. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody work so hard. (Nathan Fillion)

I’m just blown away continually by the people that have kind of taken the time to watch some of the things that I do and have expressed an appreciation for it. I’m super honored by all of them.

I think everybody fears something and then you work through it, and that’s where courage comes in. But in filmmaking specifically, you can’t lead with fear, you have to lead with courage. If you want to tell interesting, impactful stories you can’t be hampered by anyone’s theories of what filmmaking should be. So that’s what I thought would be a great way to start a film company — just create that kind of mantra for filmmaking, create interesting, impactful stories that aren’t blocked by peoples’ opinions of, ‘Oh, I can’t make it for this much money,’ or, ‘That kind of story will never fly.’ It’s just about creating amazing stories.

I am a method actor, so when I landed the role I travelled to New York, solved a homicide involving a zoo keeper and two escaped orangutans from Central Park Zoo. Then I bought myself a police badge and practised pulling it out in front of the mirror roughly 48 times!

I learned that you should just live your life. Live in the moment. Be carefree and happy because you will never know which day will be your last. I learned that you should breathe it in, breath your life in and enjoy it. Always be optimistic and be nice to people, open to people. Follow your dreams but make sure that you know what your dreams are. If you find something really great, don’t screw it up, don’t mess it up but hang on to it. You never know how and when it ends.

Some people are brave enough to give credence to their childishness, and some people shy away from it and choose a safer route. We have so much to learn from children. They have it all figured out. It is us adults who have forgotten what is important. That’s why, when someone accuses you of being ‘childish’, I think you should take it as a compliment.

Making the choice to recycle every day is the simplest way to have a positive effect on our communities & planet. It’s a small choice that can reverberate globally.

I came to Hollywood, but I’m not doing this for fame, but for the art. Anyways, I came here without an agent, acquaintances, and with very little money. I knew that if I wanted to stay, I’d have to do everything on my own.

I came to Los Angeles in the summer, after I finished at the academy. My parents gave me some money and their blessing, and I drove for four days to Los Angeles. I thought I had a firm agreement with the agency, but when I arrived, I found that wasn’t the case. […] The first few months really weren’t easy. I slept in hostels, sometimes in the car, just to save money. After a while, I got a job – I sold furniture in a department store in Los Angeles – which made it a little easier because I was able to rent an apartment. Shortly after that, I met my manager, with whom I still work with today, and started to make my way into film and television.

I think you pay people based on their work and not based on gender. It’s that simple.

I believe that everyone is responsible for their own happiness. I believe that anything is possible. Of course, you need a lot of hard work and a strong will. I am convinced that everyone – and I really mean this – is able to achieve their dreams. So, do I believe in fate? No, I believe in dreams and serious, tedious work.