Michelle Pfeiffer

“I knew I got [Scarface] when I cut Al Pacino’s finger in the test.  I had to throw some dishes at him.  Suddenly, there was all this blood.  And I thought: Oh, my God, did I cut Al Pacino, I’ll never get this movie now.  But it was my hand.  They must have thought: Hey!  If she can cut herself and not know it - a real actress!”

“Just standing around looking beautiful is so boring.”

“For me, getting comfortable with being famous was hard - that whole side of it, the loss of anonymity, the loss of privacy.  Giving up that part of your life and not having control of it.”

“Whenever I got a good review, I’d think the studio paid for it.  Or perhaps, I’d met the critic and they’d liked me.  I just didn’t believe that something good was being written about me for no reason.  It’s taken me a long time to be convinced.”

“[Film-making] is like going into combat except you don’t get a Purple Heart.  First day is the worst.  Everybody’s real nervous and thinks no one else is.  You forget the director is just as nervous.  Takes a while to learn how to make the nerves work for you.  And the last day, even if the movie has been a real pisser, is very difficult, the intensity of feeling closer to someone.”

“I feel less pressure to dress youthfully.  I’m 50 and everyone knows I’m 50 - who are you kidding?  Jeans are my uniform.  I have about 15 pairs.”

“I have days when I just feel I look like a dog.”

“I look like a duck.  It’s the way my mouth curls up, or my nose tilts up.  I should have played Howard the Duck.”

“Like all parents, my husband and I just do the best we can, hold our breath and hope we’ve set aside enough money for our kid’s therapy.”

“I didn’t become an actress so that my life could be exposed.  It’s really the only thing that makes me contemplate quitting.”

“I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker...  but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table.”

“Even though I don’t feel I need approval, it’s still important to me to give a good performance.  I’m hard on myself.”

“I’m a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad - and other people, too.  At the same time, I think that’s one of the reasons I’m successful.  Because I really care about what I do.”

“Somewhere along the line I made the switch and was able to look at the bight side rather than the dark side all the time.  Now I look at everything I have and think how lucky I am.”