Frances McDormand

“I went to high school in a steel town in Pennsylvania.”

“I wasn't into sports, but I was really into Shakespeare.”

“If you take it as a compliment that you don't look your age, then you're really shooting yourself in the foot.”

“Growing up a preacher's kid wasn't the easiest thing. Everybody's always watching you to see how you'll behave - or misbehave.”

“I've made a professional reputation playing working-class, middle-class, American women. There's a real sense of stoicism and pragmatism and strength and lyricism of a woman like that.”

“I think awards are good for the movie. They can bring a new audience to the movie. I've always claimed that things like that don't get you work. Work gets you work. That's my blue-collar, protestant work ethic.”

“My position has always been that the way people age and the signs that we show of aging is nature's way of tattooing. It's natural scarification, and the life you lead gives you the symbols and the emblems of your life, the road map you followed.”

“I haven't done much press for many reasons, but mostly because it's not an interesting dialogue about work that's been done. It's turned into something else. It's become this ridiculous other thing.”

“My name is Frances Louise McDormand, formerly known as Cynthia Ann Smith. I was born in Gibson City, Ill., in 1957. I identify as gender-normative, heterosexual, and white-trash American. My parents were not white trash. My birth mother was white trash.”

“I was completely naive about the business of being an actor. My family didn't go to the theater or to the movies. We watched television like every 1960s small-town American family, and I certainly never thought about being on TV. I thought I was going to be a classical actor in the grand tradition.”

“There's something healing about tears.”

“We appreciate quiet living. It's not exactly a Hollywood way of life - I couldn't stand living out in Hollywood because you can never escape from the business. All people ever do is talk about movies. At least in New York you can have some other life.”

“I never read books - and still don't read books - to develop them.”

“I'm attracted to male gestures and sexuality.”

“We don't need a lot of initiatives for women in film; what we need is money.”

“I want to separate my professional life from my personal life. I want to live a normal life and be a normal mother.”

“Everybody dresses like a teenager. Everybody dyes their hair. Everybody is concerned about a smooth face.”

“Most women's pictures are as boring and as formulaic as men's pictures. In place of a car chase or a battle scene, what you get is an extreme closeup of a woman breaking down.”

“It was really fascinating for everyone involved in 'Fargo' that Marge Gunderson became the iconic character she did. I think it was something about the cultural zeitgeist and what was happening with women in the workplace.”

“Certainly, a lot of the films I've worked on have ended up good movies, but they haven't always been the best experiences.”