Laura Dern

“Having been raised by actors who love moral ambiguity and flawed protagonists, I feel like it's sort of in the blood to want to take it on.”

“I tend to always love material with flawed protagonists and morally ambiguous people.”

“I was raised on movie sets, and I decided for myself at a very young age that it was what I wanted to do.”

“I made a commitment to myself; that I wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to do films that make a difference. It has to move people.”

“My mother opened a bank account for me when I made $60 on my first day of work as an extra. She's that kind of mother.”

“Something that I've cared about deeply my whole career is getting to work with filmmakers and inventors of stories that are hysterical because they are just so painfully true.”

“Meditation is a practice that is considered mainstream: The NFL uses it, the NBA uses it, heart patients use it. It's very easy to consider yourself a meditator and not be too alternative-minded.”

“I was on the cover of a lot of magazines, and there were compliments about beauty and fashion and what I was wearing. Man, if you get locked into that, you can lose your freedom as an actress.”

“Hopefully, film inspires you to think about human nature. It make us consider how we treat strangers and our most intimate.”

“Diet is weird. It's elusive. I just try to listen to my body.”

“I'm interested in flawed protagonists. I was raised on them.”

“If you have a movie coming out, and people are talking about you, the amount of scripts will build.”

“I always wondered what it would be like to have a normal childhood.”

“Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.”

“Sometimes my family got me in the door. Somebody would say, 'Bruce Dern's daughter - sure I'd like to meet her.' It was a point of interest. But after five minutes of talking about my father, I still had to read for the part.”

“If we could all figure out a way to just be true to ourselves and have a good time doing what we're doing, it would be a lot more fun.”

“A lot of people have asked whether acting is in my genes. I don't know if anyone is born to act. And it certainly wasn't pushed on me. It was something I wanted to do.”

“It's always been a desire of mine to work with my parents.”

“I don't think you have to be in these serious, heavy, independent little movies to be an actor. Some of the most interesting acting I've seen is on cable television.”

“For me, the greatest good fortune I have being raised by actors is I came in knowing that a career is the ebb and flow.”