Virginia Madsen Quotations

I spend a lot of time at my son’s school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies.

Men, we don't need you to be a knight in shining armor. We just need you to be a little bit brave, just a little bit. And some of them are, and that's what he does.

I have good genes. My father is Danish and my mother is Irish and Native American. They both have good skin.

To me it meant, just looking at it from a Maya point of view, it meant that Paul Miles is always moving laterally in his life. And she just wants him to take a couple of steps forward, you know?

Our audience is all the girls who made Britney a huge star. Those are the girls who bought the book. I didn't read the book at first. I read the script just to see what I would think of the script and I really liked it.

You know, we’re not on stage, we’re not doing a play, so we don’t have a relationship with the audience but going through that process and also just hearing how much people love the film, you feel like you do have a relationship with the audience.

I hope Britney doesn't get bummed out that Lindsey is a better singer. It is not Lindsey saying it, it's me. Lindsey would never say that. She's an actress first. It's just a bonus that she can dance and sing.

I think that all of us are just really so amazed that we're going. It seems the dominating factors are 'Million Dollar Baby' and '(The) Aviator,' and there's some things that our film can't compete with in the marketplace.

I saw her when she was like 10-years-old in "The Barbara Mandrell Story," which is pretty bizarre since it was on in Canada the first week we were there... so strange. I knew her face. I kind of remembered her, but I didn't know anything about her family.

We've been doing quite a bit of Q&As where maybe one or more of us go and we speak after the film.

When my son was really little, he assumed everyone was on TV because his uncle is on TV, my best friend is on TV, friends I know are in movies and his grandmother is a writer. One day he was looking at this commercial and he was positive that his nanny was in it. I said, "No, honey. That's not her.

But now I've heard him say that that is not the case and, in fact, he has a lot of plans for the show.

It's more than the alpha male. You can feel he's a powerful man, and yet, he's so kind. There's a lot of love around him.

The last studio film I made was Fire with Fire for Universal in 1984. After that, I had to fight for the independent movies and TV projects I got. I never received mainstream offers any more. I sort of languished on the detour route. It makes you feel so inadequate. You see yourself as a loser.

I mean, sometimes people get into big debates. Like when we were in Washington, big debating audiences. Debates about women and men, men and women, what's it all about. I'll tell ya. Sometimes they get into a bit of man-bashing and I always try to go, "Hey, you know what you guys? That's not really what it's about.

I just find it so refreshing to work with a young person who is that professional and that focused on doing a good job... really responsible.

Can I ask you a personal question? -- Why are you so into pinot?

He's really sharp and I find him to be an extremely observant person. He watches people and he listens to people, and he likes actors. He likes working with actors. He likes his crew, and so he creates an atmosphere on his set that is really conducive to our creativity - and the crew's, as well.

All the kids had a movie night. They rented "Candyman." They were all really scared of it. I don't think they looked at me the same after that.

Marg Helgenberger and I were waitresses in the same restaurant in Evanston, Illinois. I'm happy to say that that restaurant has since been torn down.We both had an audition for ABC soaps - different soaps, but we auditioned at the same time, and she got the part and went off to New York. Three years later, I went to L.A. So she was kind of an inspiration to me. And it makes sense that we will both be in Wonder Woman together, because we ARE Wonder Women.

Everything that I play as an actress is a different aspect of me.

If my son would only listen to my advice, he would lead a perfect life. I'll still be saying that to him when I'm 75. I like to imagine that I have the control, but he's a teenager, so that never really happens.

I want every movie to be like a big family and a great adventure.

I love Keri Russell. I watched every episode of Felicity, and Waitress is my favorite film. I like her voice a lot - it didn't surprise me that she would be doing voiceover work.

I'm a fan. I would have been a fan of Candyman even if I hadn't been in that movie. I'm a huge fan of Star Trek, which is why I was in Star Trek: Voyager - because I begged them to be a part of that lore.

I was always an actress, even as a little kid, and fantasy, horror, sci-fi stories are really all about playing make believe. I just never grew out of that.

Dune was really my first Hollywood job. It was such a small part, but I opened the movie. I was about 19 years old and I had to make this speech, and I didn't understand most of the words because they were, you know, words from Dune.

They were made up names in Dune that I didn't know how to pronounce, but I knew how I should sound because I was a sci-fi fan myself. I hadn't read the book, but I knew that I was the princess of the universe. I went in and sort of made her up, and David Lynch thought it matched and cast me.

I was not a comic book reader, but my son is. My son wasn't really interested in reading books, which was hard for me because I love to read. It just didn't come naturally to my boy. So we kind of found comic books because they were fascinating to him. They were great stories.

I have to read comic books all first, because now when you get into graphic novels, they are definitely in deep graphic.

Sadly, I really want to be Batman ... and I just never will be.

When I was growing up, the really, really cool super heroes were all male - so I wanted to be them.

I love when I get to play these characters that are bigger than life. There are roles in animation that I never get to do in real life - and it appeals to my ego as an actor to play the Queen of Everything. I admit it.

Voiceover work reminds me of old-time radio. When I was little I used to sneak and stay up at night and listen to Mystery Radio Theater - I loved all those old radio plays.

A radio play actually ended up being the first acting job I ever had. A lot of times when I'm on camera, I'm playing characters that are more like myself, and I don't get to do a lot of real character work. But when you're doing animation, you are the very epitome of colorful characters. I think I'm just really into make believe.

In animation, there's silly things I get to do with my voice. I get to have a wider range, so my voice gets to dance more than it does on camera.

It's almost like I get to be more theatrical when I work in voiceover.

I am a proud mother - that's another reason I love doing any kind of animation. When my son was growing up, if he was watching something animated and I was in it, that was way cooler to him than seeing me in a movie.

You can't not be into basketball and grow up in Chicago or live in L.A., because people are so fanatical about the teams. You know what's going on with the games even if you don't watch.

Men, we don't need you in shining armor. We just need you a little bit brave, just a little bit brave.

I really didn't like Batgirl. I was like, "No, if I'm not gonna be Batman, I'm not gonna play." Maybe they could write an evil female super villain who takes over Batman, and nobody knows.

Do something good for yourself today. You matter.

I always tell actors, "Don't think of it as unemployment when you don't have a job. You have to think of it as being in preparation for your next job." You have to be always preparing for success.

It would be good if you opened your heart to the fullness of time and spirit.

The actor side of me loves to get dressed up and I feel like Cinderella when I'm in diamonds.

I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity.