A biography for Mary Steenburgenhasn’t been written yet.
“I had a sense of mortality since I was a little girl, which has to do with my father, who nearly died eight times in my childhood. He had eight heart attacks.”
“I wanted a relationship like the one my mother and father had. It wasn't perfect; they had to work on it. But there was an unbelievable mutual respect.”
“It was a few days later I came out to Hollywood for a screen test, and so did a lot of other people. So, I really didn't think I would get it. I was definitely the one that was least likely to get it, because everyone else was an already established star.”
“The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.”
“That's my name. I know it's difficult, and it's not pretty, but it's my name.”
“My agents and managers deserve a special Emmy award for scheduling.”
“Whenever we start a new TV series, there's also a lot of question marks, and part of that is finding who you are.”
“When you read books, you kind of create that whole world in your mind, and you go on a journey with the author of that book. I think that's really a good thing.”
“I remember when I was growing up and watching southern people depicted on television, I thought, 'Well, based on what I'm seeing, I guess I'm supposed to be stupid and racist.' It's still, sadly, the easy route for a writer to go.”
“I loved Westerns for different reasons as an adult. It is not only our only native brand of storytelling - the only one that's not influenced by Europeans and not something that's done better by the French - but I also love the sensuality of the Western. The sights, sounds, and smell of a Western are very exciting.”
“'Justified' had such dead-on beautiful scripts that you didn't want to mess with it.”
“There's just such a premium on hurrying, and the camera is the be all and end all, and the actors had better hurry up and get it right and get it done.”
“I know that's why I became an actress. In my dream world, I could get mad and scream and yell, and if somebody died, they got up again. In real life, I didn't dare try it.”
“What a mother I am. I can't even make popcorn.”
“There's a style to doing period pieces, and you can't do a Western without understanding 'My Darling Clementine.'”
“Will Forte is such a nice, extraordinarily creative human being. Utterly fearless.”
“You don't get to make Westerns every day.”
“At one point, I kind of looked in the mirror and said, 'You know, you're a mom. You're a wife. People count on you; you can't go off the deep end into this kind of crazy musical swirl.'”
“There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.”
“I wasn't making any money, but I didn't feel unsuccessful because of that. You can do that in New York but not in Hollywood. In Hollywood, it is how much money you make.”