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I Know That Actors And Actresses Have A Great Reputation For Being Very, Very Selfish, And In Some Cases, That's Very True. But In The Theater I Find It Doesn't Help You To Be Selfish. You Sort Of Have To Be Selfless In The Theater, And The More Selfless You Are - That Doesn't Mean Don't Take Care Of Yourself - But The More You Sort Of Surrender To The Work, I Find, The Better The Work Is. That's Just My Experience.

-Laura Linney

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I Know That Actors

Laura Linney

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I Know That Actors And Actresses Have A Great Reputation For Being Very, Very Selfish, And In Some Cases, That's Very True. But In The Theater I Find It Doesn't Help You To Be Selfish. You Sort Of Have To Be Selfless In The Theater, And The More Selfless You Are - That Doesn't Mean Don't Take Care Of Yourself - But The More You Sort Of Surrender To The Work, I Find, The Better The Work Is. That's Just My Experience.

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When You're Dying, You're Liberated To Do What You Want To Do. You Give Yourself Permission. I Think Everyone's Experience With A Terminal Disease Is So Deeply Personal And Unique To The Person, The Context In Which They're Living And The Relationships That They Have.

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A Magnetic Personality Doesn't Necessarily Indicate A Good Heart.

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I Grew Up In Manhattan And, Since My Father Was A Playwright, All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Stage Actress.

It Is Always Good To Explore The Stuff You Don't Agree With, To Try And Understand A Different Lifestyle Or Foreign Worldview. I Like To Be Challenged In That Way, And Always End Up Learning Something I Didn't Know.

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For Me To Have The Opportunity To Stay With One Character For, God Willing, A Long Period Of Time, Is Really Exciting.

Our Culture Is Set Up On A Feud Mentality, Or A "housewives" Mentality, That Women Just Fight. And It's Such A Shallow Way To Exist As Far As Our Evolution Is Concerned, And Our Culture Is Concerned. It's Fun To Watch Women Fight, In A Storytelling Way, But In The World, Women Shouldn't Be Seen As A Threat To Other Women.

With Big, Emotional Roles It's Very Easy, Especially If You've Grown Up In The American School Of Acting, To Exploit Your Own Pain. You Have To Be Careful About That, Because 9 Times Out Of 10, Your Pain Is Not Appropriate To The Character.

People Have To Look To The Right Places For Guidance. Looking At A Certain Type Of Entertainment Shouldn't Be Where You Go For Guidance. To Zone Out, Have A Laugh, Sure - But It's Not A Great Example On How To Navigate On A Journey. There Are Other Places To Look.

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