Personal Quotes
I still
think people will find out that I'm really not very talented. I'm really not very good. It's all just been a big
sham.
[On playing her part of Claire Spencer in What Lies Beneath (2000)] "I thought about Drew Barrymore in the first Scream (1996/I) - I mean, ultimately that movie was more funny than scary, but
the opening sequence was quite terrifying, and she portrayed terror in a way I'd never seen an actress do."
[On wearing her costume in Batman Returns (1992) for the first time]: "I thought to myself 'I can't move,
I can't breathe, I can't think. I'm unhappy. I can't act'."
[on cosmetic surgery] "If that nose or those jowls bother you, do it! But this epidemic of people losing sight
of what looks good, the distortion that has been going on is creepy."
I act for free, but I demand a huge salary as compensation for all the annoyance of being a public personality. In
that sense, I earn every dime I make.
Ultimately, I believe
the only secret to a happy marriage is choosing the right person. Life is a series of choices, right?
I was shocked at the prejudice, voiced in some quarters, over my decision to adopt a mixed-race baby. It's really
surprising that people still put so much emphasis on it. None of us are pure anything. We're all a mixture. Claudia is
a beautiful child, and some of the most beautiful people I've seen in the world have been of mixed race. As mother of
both an adopted child and my own birth-child, there is absolutely no difference in the huge amount of love I feel for both
my children. I always knew I wanted to adopt a child and also have one of my own. There is no difference at all.
I have to say this singing was harder than any I've done before. The melodies
are so fast that you can barely get a breath in. But once I got past the 'Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into'
phase, it was so much fun to sing again.
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.
Acting's an odd profession
for a young person; it's so extreme. You work, and the conditions are tough and the process is so immersive, and then
it stops, and then there's nothing. So you have to find ways of making you feel productive when you're not actually
producing anything. For a young person, that's really challenging.
[On her role as Velma Von Tussle in "Hairspray"] It's a lot of fun to play mean and sinister - but
you certainly put yourself at risk for scenery chewing. And every once in a while Adam [Shankman, the director] would come
over to me after a take and say, 'Hey, Michelle - is there a chair leg in your teeth?
(From Movieline magazine April 2002) People like Susan Sarandon have paved the way and our window of opportunity
expands incrementally year by year. Obviously the kind of roles I'm offered are different than before, but I feel like
the roles have only gotten more interesting. I want to grow up to be Judi Dench or Ellen Burstyn. The older we get, the less
we work, but look at the work just those two women are doing. It gets deeper.
