Carrie Coon

“It's much harder to act poorly written material. It's much harder to memorize poorly written material.”

“Literature has always been the greatest fuel for my imagination.”

“The women I know are smart, interesting people who aren't just there to service the men's stories, so I don't know why our art continues to do that.”

“I've been seeing a lot of theatre in New York, and I am sort of terribly jealous of everyone on stage but also really appreciating it in a way that you can't when you're in the middle of it.”

“I'm from a family with five kids in it, and my father almost became a Catholic priest. And my mother never went to church, but she's the best Christian I know. My siblings have all chosen different paths to or away from their spirituality.”

“When you have good writing, the rhythm of the scene is very apparent. What the scene demands is very clear.”

“Parents always stay older than you, but sibling sort of become adults together, and that complicates that relationship, I think.”

“I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the roles that they play.”

“The 'Fargo' characters, they're the characters of my people. They're stoic, hardworking, uncomplaining, and I loved them.”

“I think Noah Hawley's writing is hilarious, and I love a good dark joke.”

“I didn't expect to pursue acting at all, let alone TV and film, let alone New York or L.A. I was quite content doing Shakespeare out in Wisconsin.”

“My husband and I are huge bibliophiles. He's always reading 'The New York Times Book Review' and then ordering 20 books online.”

“As actors, we have to say yes to everything for a really long time. You say 'Yes' to anything you can get.”

“I ended up doing four or five plays in college and being an English major with my thesis in language acquisition, which I was planning to study in graduate school.”

“I rarely get recognized, and whenever I do, it has to do with 'The Leftovers' because it came into someone's life at a particularly important time for them - if they were dealing with grief or loss or whatever tragedy - and they just caught it. And there is no rhyme or reason to the kind of person it is.”

“I have this idea of myself as this quiet, observant, thoughtful child, which my parents roundly contradict. They claim that I was loud and bossy and dancing all the time.”

“My parents are just really down-to-earth, earnest, hardworking people that don't want for anything. I think that really served me because when you put more value on experience than things, then you're going to go out and have experiences.”

“Inevitably, when directors work with me on a set, they say, 'This isn't what I was expecting. I thought you were going to be very serious.' But I like to stay loose and have a good time and not take myself too seriously. I think, otherwise, you get in your own way.”

“I've never felt terribly attached to acting because I always feel like the world is really big and really interesting, and there are a lot of places that I can put my energy and be fulfilled.”

“Everyone thinks I'm on 'Mindhunter!'”