• “Not many people know this about me but I’m a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child as I loved the look then. So I’m basically a natural blonde.”
• “Save one-third, live on one-third and give away one-third.” - on what she does with the money she makes each year
• “I think there’s always going to be that side of me. [Harrison Ford] is doing it, and he’s doing it well, (so) it looks like I’ve got some more time.” - on making action movies
• “Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.”
• “Because I am a bad girl, people always automatically think that I am a bad girl. Or that I carry a dark secret with me or that I’m obsessed with death. The truth is that I am probably the least morbid person one can meet. If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.”
• “You’re young, you’re drunk, you’re in bed, you have knives; shit happens.”
• “And my dad, you’re a great actor but you’re a better father.”
• “I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are. And I’d beat her, too!” - on if she ever caught her husband Billy Bob Thornton cheating:
• “I’ll make it real simple, I’m a 36-C. In the game, she’s a double-D. In the movie, she’s a D. We split the difference…[the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)] is much more athletic, and she has smaller breasts, but she’s still Lara Croft, so there.”
• “I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It’s like people see Hackers (1995) and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I’d like to play strong women who are also very feminine.”
• “I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.”
• “I’m angry. I’m sad. It’s a very difficult and sad time. It was a real deep connection, a deep marriage, so it’s not that simple to say this or that one thing caused the problems. It’s clear to me that our priorities shifted overnight. He’s focused on his music and career. I’m focused on my baby. It comes down to what’s important to you.” - on her split from husband Billy Bob Thornton
• “There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tommorrow frees you to appreciate life now.” (People Magazine – July 08, 1996)
• “I felt that if I lived at that time, with the dangers she had and the threats she had and the lack of power she had as a woman, I would not have been that different from her. And I thought I also just saw her as a mother who really would push her son at a time that if he didn’t get the throne, he didn’t acquire a certain kind of strength and ability and greatness, he would probably just die or be killed or be exiled. So out of concern, out of love for your own, just to come from this place that seems very much like the horrible mafia father, but in fact it was for his own survival that she was focused on, which made it very easy for me to focus on thinking of my own son and what he had to do to protect himself from bad things that could hurt him.” - on playing Olympias in Alexander (2004)
• “If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.”
• “We are setting an example of what we think is beautiful and you really want to put that much make up on me?” - on the superficiality of the industry
• “You might never find out that you are useful for all the right reasons – and not all those stupid things that people tell you you’re useful for.”
• “My role as goodwill ambassador has made my work as a film star relatively dull. I can’t find anything that interests me enough to go back to work. I’m simply not excited about anything. I’m not excited about going to a film set.” (CNN International Edition – January 29, 2005)
• “If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.”
• “Love one person, take care of them until you die. You know, raise kids. Have a good life. Be a good friend. And try to be completely who you are. And figure out what you personally love. And like go after it with everything you’ve got no matter how much it takes.”
• “Traditional ’40s stockings with the hooks and garter belt are so sexy. I love them.”
• “I use Blistex, but because my lips are naturally red, I also subdue the colour with a nude lipstick. I know other women would kill for my lips, but I feel they take over my face.”
• “Sex scenes aren’t easy for anyone, no matter how comfortable you might be with the person. But I have to say, lying in bed naked from the waist up isn’t sex.”
• “It’s not true that I had my lips insured for a million dollars. But of all the rumours out there about me, I think that’s the funniest.”
• “When I was growing up, I never babysat. I was considered too ‘punk rock’ to be trusted with kids.”
• “I’m never going to have a mans name tattooed on my body again.”
• “When getting a tattoo removed, the worst part is the smell.”
• “I’ve never held a baby. So when he smiled it wasn’t as much that he liked me, but it was more that he was ok with me.”
• “I tried to wear a proper dress and figuring out that if I could have the thing halfway falling off, it would almost cover the tattoo on that arm. Then maybe I could blend in. That was before I figured out I couldn’t blend in, so why try.” - on the 1998 Emmys
• “I don’t keep awards. My brother has my Golden Globes, and my mom has the Oscar. I think it’s just good not to have them around to look at all the time.”
• “I went to Beverly Hills High for about a year, and then I went to the section where they put the bad kids. I volunteered to go there. I graduated early. I was like ‘Get me out of here.’ I was clearly thrilled to be there.” - on High school
• “I practiced forever on that jet ski for Tomb Raider. And I don’t really like the water. And I don’t like bikinis either. So a jet ski and a bikini: That’s pretty close to my nightmare.”
• “I was very amazed by Colin. I think he is an amazing actor.”
• “I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow and I love that you know.”
• “If you cheat on somebody, I don’t agree with you. If you hurt somebody or damage somebody? You’re not OK in my book. And you’re never going to be, period.”
• “I thought I’d help other people out, but in turn, they’ve really done more for me. It’s made me a better person. I’m not so focussed on my own problems.”
• “When your mind goes blank, did you actually forget or are you afraid of it being exposed?”
• “I once smoked a lot, drank too much, suffered insomnia and like every other person I know, was unbalanced.”
• “I’m tired of crying and feeling so helpless. I want to breathe again – Just for a little while. Then I will do whatever I can to help these people. How could I not – Once I met them, once I saw them.”
• “You know when you can love someone so much you can almost kill them?”
• “Between madness and love lies obsession.”
• “Sanity is overrated.”
• “I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.”
• “Now, I’ve really come to like Lara, so she’s just like a weird friend.”
• “I found myself in a country where I started traveling. I started to realize there was so much about the world I knew nothing about. It wasn’t taught in school. There were so many things I should be more in tune to, more aware of.” - on her UNHCR work
• “I’m supposed to tell stories, and you’re supposed to believe I’m other people. You shouldn’t be so focused about who I really am.”
• “I didn’t get it for the dark of reason everybody thinks. It’s a reminder that we could die tomorrow, so live today. It was a positive reminder to be free…” - on her (now removed) death tattoo
• “We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly… Only after we have lost everything, are we free to do anything… Throw things out there and not be perfect and not have answers to anything and see if people understand.”
• “I didn’t really want to live, so anything that was an investment in time made me angry. But also I just felt sad. When the hopelessness is hurting you, it’s the fixtures and fittings that finish you off.”
• “If it weren’t for Billy, I don’t think I’d be doing much of anything in this life. He makes me feel like a woman. I have someone in my life who makes me discover what it is to be a woman, and really to be free, and to try things. So it gave me some confidence. And before I met him, I knew what it was to want freedom and have moments of it, but also to feel very caged. I’m completely out of whatever cage I was in, and it’s because of him.”
• “If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.”
• “I’d like to be able to spend time with just jeans on, just hanging out. You see people outside working, and you always see guys with their shirts off.”
• “I never felt settled or calm. You can’t really commit to life when you feel that.”
• “I haven’t touched a knife in a really long time, I don’t need one, I don’t want one. Mind you, I will be doing Tomb Raider, and I will probably be throwing them. But I was 14. I was like a real punk kid, and I was going out of my mind. And then sex was boring and I was working and…”
• “It’s all or nothing with my makeup. If I get dressed up, I’ll go to an extreme. I’ll wear foundation and bright blue or bright red lipstick with one of my weird purple wigs.”
• “When I was young, my dad and I watched Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. I told my dad that was the kind of animal passion I wanted from a man.”
• “I loved some kind of expression. I didn’t know what it was going to be. I didn’t know if I could write, or paint that well, but I knew I could feel it.”
• “Oh, God, well, I don’t know if it’s divorced families or what, but he and I were each other’s everything, always, we’ve been best friends, He’s the sweetest human being I know. He’s a good person, and he’s just given me so much love, and taken care of me and, you know, it makes life great.”
• “There was a time when I was really going to give up acting… Right after Foxfire. I was trying to find characters with a certain strength and things going on, but I was always disappointed. Wallace was the first thing I did where I felt their ideas were better than mine.”
• “I got really drunk!”
• “I would like to be open with the public. I would like to not keep secrets or be careful when I talk. I don’t want to have to plan things… I want to be outspoken. I want to say my opinions and I hope they’re taken in the right way. I don’t want to stop being free. And I won’t.”
• “If you have enough people sitting around telling you you’re wonderful, then you start believing you’re fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!”
• “I’ve collected weapons since I was a little girl.”
• “Pain is always a pleasure.”
• “I’m odd looking, I sometimes think I look like a funny muppet.”
• “I’m a rebel without a cause.”
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