I didn't have the kind of talent or personality that kept me dreaming about Hollywood. They don't hire little colored girls to do this or that. After I got that in my head, I took another direction.
Hollywood is like a piranha. They don't give you breathing room. You don't have time to let your career breathe.
Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
I cook croquetas, and I eat jamon. I keep my diet 100% Mediterranean and drink my Rioja. In that sense, I have a piece of Spain in West Hollywood.
Social conditions that spur large numbers of people into action are ignored in favor of a Hollywood version of history focusing on one conquering hero. Since a movement for social change is embodied in its leader, death of the leader means death of the movement.
Hollywood exists only for the B-movies. The best things are coming from Europe.
Now while the German money is over for Hollywood, I still have $80 million to make movies, and we will have two things coming up: less major movies and the price for actors will go down.
My driving abilities from Mexico have helped me get through Hollywood.
I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.
My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!'
My brother and I moved out to Hollywood initially to be a band, and where we lived, there was crime all over with my brother and I being the victims sometimes.
I read 'Tiger Beat' and 'Bop' from the time I was 9, 10, 11 years old. I loved movies. I saw 'E.T.' seven times. I used to yell at people who called me when 'L.A. Law' was on because they should know better. So I just have been so in love with the business of Hollywood since I can remember.
I have long believed that celebrity, the way we worship and package and sell our pop stars, is what filled the need for gods that was once filled by the pictures in stained glass. Hollywood is post-Christian Venice - in other words, a pantheon of saints without the hassle and heartache of religion.
One quality that a director needs to acquire in Hollywood is to understand the system and figure out how to work within the system to express one's own ideas.
When you know who you are, you know who you are. That's the real dangerous thing in Hollywood, because they all want to create you and mold you.
I like showing moms what it's really like having a baby, and how it's not Hollywood life.
I rode all around Hollywood listening to Donna Summer, looking out the window - all by myself - just going, 'I'm number one!' It's a pretty extraordinary feeling.
I know plenty of Hollywood kids who still struggle with being whole. Their lives are never fully their own - always in the grip of a parent who put celebrity ahead of them.
I've definitely had my fair share at shaking my fists at the gods of Hollywood, but I'm learning that I cannot think that way or I will go crazy.
I used to go to the Hollywood YMCA when I first came here, and I was standing in front of the mirror doing curls, and I noticed this guy next to me also doing curls. He was grimacing a lot, and I noticed he had an underbite. I looked more closely and realized it was Bruce Springsteen.
Being a conservative union member is almost like being an actor in Hollywood: You don't dare say it, or you might be injured on the job, or you might be laid off, or your family might have something happen to them.
Female movie stars from the pre-Code era of Hollywood, like Mae West, could be so raunchy and witty before they were edited. Sometimes they could go further in their wit than we go now.
I don't really go out and do too much like networking and Hollywood events kind of thing. But I do some writing, and I find it helps me as an actor in terms of giving yourself back the power and feeling a bit of strength in that respect.
I'm still waiting for my first big Hollywood paycheck... maybe I'll play a superhero.
Hollywood's just not funny.
Sometimes you have to change the mold. If people keep following the same Hollywood mold, you're going to get the same thing. And as a Black actress, there's not a whole lot out there for us, unless we're creating it.
In my mind, I've always been an A-list Hollywood superstar. Y'all just didn't know yet.
Hollywood is a cross between a health farm, a recreation center and an insane asylum. It's a company town, and I happen to like the company!
Generally, Hollywood makes the same stories over and over. I've never wanted to do the same thing twice. If a script doesn't surprise me in some way, I simply can't commit to the project.
If you had asked me when I was in Yale, I would tell you I never would have thought it would happen because I just didn't think of myself of having the Hollywood look.
Most movies suck, even the independent ones. Hollywood is like baseball: Hit three good ones out of 10 and you're a Hall of Famer.
I never 'went Hollywood.' Perhaps some of my behavior was detrimental to my career, but I couldn't go the route of Hollywood parties.
My own mum cared about Hollywood, and I didn't. I wanted to act, and I loved the creativity of it, but I didn't care for the lifestyle.
What I consider a good part for a woman and what some other Hollywood people think are good women's parts are very different. I don't want to play the supportive girlfriend who has nine scenes and just loves that man, maybe cheats on him in one scene but will always be there, and I mean - give me a break.
Both Kennedy and Obama exuded a dash of glamour in their roles as commander-in-chief and became the darlings of Hollywood. As president, each brought to the White House a fashionable and accomplished First Lady, two adorable young children and scene-stealing pets.
I wasn't creative enough to imagine my first novel becoming a film directed by Alexander Payne. Nor did I consider the possibility of seeing Hollywood stars moving through my personal version of Hanalei town: going to Tahiti Nui, rehearsing a scene in front of my cousin's cottages, driving the snaky roads.
