"Michelle Pfeiffer’s Big Secret", interview with Urbanette (February 2016) http://urbanette.com/michelle-pfeiffer-interview/
Michelle Pfeiffer:
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Famous Michelle Pfeiffer Quotes
“I was very strong-willed, very stubborn, and fairly dramatic, I guess.”
Vanity Fair (1993) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mag_1993-09_VanityFair.htm
Context: I had a big mouth, and I used to mouth off to my mother all the time. But I'd make sure my father wasn't in earshot, because he'd let me have it. I was very strong-willed, very stubborn, and fairly dramatic, I guess. I remember my mother calling me a drama queen when I would be carrying on: 'Here's my little actress.' And I was a real tomboy. I wasn't a terribly feminine little girl. I never thought I was attractive to boys; I remember when the first boy liked me, I couldn't believe it. All the little girls with ringlets and crinoline dresses were the ones the boys liked. I was always beating them up — why should they like me? I was always the biggest girl in the class, and if somebody wanted someone beaten up, they'd come and get me. I was the school bully. No wonder I played Catwoman. It all comes full circle.
“It's usually just awkward. It's not terribly romantic or steamy.”
On love scenes with male co-stars, from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
Context: It's usually just awkward. It's not terribly romantic or steamy. Sometimes people's wives show up — "Hey, how you doing?"… I had a wedding scene with someone once, and the girlfriend showed up in a white dress...
Esquire (1990) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mich_Quo1.htm
Context: 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.
“You know, I look like a duck. I just do. And I'm not the only person who thinks that.”
People magazine (1990) http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20128142,00.html
Context: You know, I look like a duck. I just do. And I'm not the only person who thinks that. It's the way my mouth sort of curls up or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the Duck.
In response to the question, "How do you approach your roles?" from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
Context: I always look at it as — it's like a treasure map, and each little detail in it, you sort of look at it for information and it points you in the right direction, to tell you where you need to go. You start out with a few choices, obviously — I need to learn the clarinet or I need to learn the cello, or I need to learn how to stay underwater without panicking — but it is like painting in a way, that at a certain point, the painting begins to tell you what to do. And with acting, it's the same — with acting in film, anyway — at a certain point then, what you've already put on screen begins to dictate to you where you need to go, and then it just starts to create itself in a way. And what I try to do is find a strand of myself, as different as I might feel the character is from me, and as removed as it is, I always try to find that one part of me. And then you kind of build on to that, because it's a way to keep you connected. And you never want to lose that connection. There's always some sort of parallel that's going on in my own life, and so you can use it to, you know, bring closure, perhaps, to certain things that you haven't. A healing, a reconnection. And I believe in that. I believe in that.
Michelle Pfeiffer Quotes
In response to the question, "How do you approach your roles?" from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
Context: I always look at it as — it's like a treasure map, and each little detail in it, you sort of look at it for information and it points you in the right direction, to tell you where you need to go. You start out with a few choices, obviously — I need to learn the clarinet or I need to learn the cello, or I need to learn how to stay underwater without panicking — but it is like painting in a way, that at a certain point, the painting begins to tell you what to do. And with acting, it's the same — with acting in film, anyway — at a certain point then, what you've already put on screen begins to dictate to you where you need to go, and then it just starts to create itself in a way. And what I try to do is find a strand of myself, as different as I might feel the character is from me, and as removed as it is, I always try to find that one part of me. And then you kind of build on to that, because it's a way to keep you connected. And you never want to lose that connection. There's always some sort of parallel that's going on in my own life, and so you can use it to, you know, bring closure, perhaps, to certain things that you haven't. A healing, a reconnection. And I believe in that. I believe in that.
In response to the question, "What is your favourite curse word?" from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
Context: That would have to be the F-word. Do you want me to say it? It's so descriptive, it can be used in so many ways — it can be used lovingly, it can be used in the most hateful — it's just very versatile... and you know, it's just, sometimes no other word will do.
Interview on Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
“I don't like talking about the characters I do in film, ever.”
Vogue (1991) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mag_1991-10_Vogue.htm
Context: I don't like talking about the characters I do in film, ever. There's no deep, dark meaning. It's just an idea. It's just an idea.
Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
“That would have to be the F-word.”
In response to the question, "What is your favourite curse word?" from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
Context: That would have to be the F-word. Do you want me to say it? It's so descriptive, it can be used in so many ways — it can be used lovingly, it can be used in the most hateful — it's just very versatile... and you know, it's just, sometimes no other word will do.
In response to criticism that she was too beautiful to play a lonely waitress in Frankie and Johnny, quoted in Pfeiffer: Beyond the Age of Innocence by Thompson, p. 223
Context: The description of the character is that Frankie is an attractive woman if she'd just put a little effort into how she looks. So that's basically the way I played her. I consider myself an attractive woman, and I can be not-so-great-looking if I don't put effort into how I look. But more importantly, the core of the character was someone who had given up on love, and that could be any age, any size, any form of beauty. That could be anybody.
Vanity Fair (1989) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mag_1989-02_Vanity.htm
On auditioning for Scarface, from Inside the Actors Studio (2007) http://uk.youtube.com/user/pfeifferpfan2
